Sophos endpoint security advances aim to improve cyberthreat defences, streamline management
Oxford, U.K. 9 March 2023 – Sophos, a global provider of cybersecurity as a service, has introduced advances in its portfolio of endpoint security offerings. New adaptive active adversary protection; Linux malware protection enhancements; account health check capabilities; an integrated zero trust network access (ZTNA) agent for Windows and macOS devices; and more improve frontline defences against advanced cyberthreats and streamline endpoint security management.
“Ransomware remains one of the most prevalent and damaging cyberthreats to organisations, with Sophos incident responders still consistently remediating ransomware activity worldwide. Now isn’t the time for organisations to let their guard down because of any perceived reduction in attacks; in fact, they should be strengthening defenses as attacks are now more intricate and difficult to detect, requiring advanced security techniques that can sense and then quickly adapt to better protect themselves,” says Raja Patel, senior vice president of products at Sophos. “Sophos endpoint security is widely recognised as the industry gold standard, and we’re consistently innovating our market-leading, intelligent endpoint technologies to keep organisations ahead of unrelenting attackers.”
Designed to improve protection and operational efficiency, as well as speed up detection and response, the new Sophos endpoint innovations include:
- Adaptive active adversary protection: A core part of Sophos’ “shields up” design methodology that provides defenders with additional time needed to respond to targeted attacks underway. Sophos Intercept X immediately enables heightened defenses as soon as it detects a “hands-on-keyboard” endpoint intrusion. This wide-reaching step up in defensive measures removes an attacker’s ability to take further actions by minimising the attack surface, disrupting and containing the attack prior to response team engagement, and providing insights needed for complete remediation
- Linux malware protection enhancements: On-access malware scanning and quarantine capabilities improve real-time prevention of security incidents within Linux operating environments. Added to the Sophos Intercept X Advanced for Server offering, these new features complement existing functionality, including live runtime detections and response to container escapes, cryptominers, data destruction, and kernel exploits
- Account health check: Intuitive, real-time health check monitoring of security configurations and policy settings with the ability to automatically return to recommended settings in a single click, optimising security posture and enabling organisations to promptly re-establish security best practices. Assessments ensure devices are running the necessary security components, policies are following recommended settings, tamper protection is active, exclusions aren’t creating attack surface exposure, and more
- Integrated ZTNA agent for Windows and macOS devices: Sophos Intercept X is one of the only endpoint protection solutions with a modular ZTNA agent, and organisations can now extend defenses to include Sophos ZTNA across entire estates without deploying an additional agent
- Faster, lightweight agent: Reduces the Windows agent’s memory footprint by 40% and the number of processes by more than 30%, accelerating the performance of applications, workloads and devices. Sophos has also introduced a new extended detection and response (XDR) sensor deployment option that’s approximately 80% lighter than the previous full agent
Sophos endpoint solutions provide deep learning malware detection, anti-ransomware technology, exploit prevention, and much more to prevent attackers from gaining a foothold in the first place. Sophos Intercept X, the market-leading endpoint security solution, protects more than 300,000 organisations against both known and unknown malware and exploits.
Sophos XDR gives security analysts the ability to proactively hunt threats, providing faster detection, investigation and response to drive better security outcomes. Sophos endpoint offerings also include server workload protection for unmatched server and container security and integrated web and application controls; Sophos Mobile for secure unified endpoint management; and Sophos Encryption for full disk encryption.
Sophos’ complete and integrated portfolio of endpoint, network and cloud solutions and managed security services are part of the Sophos Adaptive Cybersecurity Ecosystem. They’re powered by threat intelligence from Sophos X-Ops for faster and more contextual and synchronised protection, detection and response.
Availability
Sophos endpoint security offerings are available for immediate purchase exclusively through Sophos’ global channel of partners and managed service providers (MSPs). New software management options enable organisations to precisely control which versions of Sophos endpoint software are deployed on specific devices with new fixed term support packages for Windows computers and servers, with macOS and Linux coverage coming later this year.
Solutions are easily managed in the cloud-native Sophos Central platform. Partners can also leverage Sophos Managed Detection and Response (MDR) as a service to detect and respond to threats. The industry-leading service offering is trusted by more than 15,000 organisations for 24/7 threat hunting, detection and response with industry-first third-party integration capabilities and a $1 million (€0.95 million) Sophos Breach Protection Warranty.
Comment on this article below or via Twitter @IoTGN