Sophos Central Email - Security for emails with sandboxing from the cloud
While it’s now quick and easy to send a WhatsApp message in your personal life, e-mail remains indispensable in the business world. Every day we process large volumes of e-mail and need to maintain a clear overview. That’s not always straightforward: if the spam filter fails, you must take great care not to open an attachment that turns out to be a crypto-ransomware payload.
Once you’ve read this blog post, spam, malware and phishing e-mails in your inbox will no longer be a problem, because we once again have the pleasure of introducing a new product from Sophos: Sophos Central Email.
What exactly is Sophos Central Email?
To begin with, Sophos Central Email is another product in the portfolio of the cloud-based management platform “Sophos Central”. The range of Sophos Central services is now truly impressive, and you can browse and order all currently available Central modules in our shop.
In brief, Sophos Central Email is a:
Cloud-based e-mail security gateway that can be managed via Sophos Central.
Less technically, you can think of Sophos Central Email as an additional protection layer that re-checks all your e-mails for viruses, malware, malicious attachments, harmful URLs and phishing before they reach your inbox. Sophos Central Email integrates seamlessly with Office 365, Google Apps for Work, Exchange (from version 2003) and many other solutions.
To summarise, here are some key benefits of Sophos Central Email:
- Fast deployment and easy integration
- Proven protection against viruses, malware, spam and phishing
- Ability to block senders or domains globally
- Self-service portal where users can release quarantined e-mails
- E-mail continuity with a self-service portal for end users, spooling and an emergency inbox
- Reliable, global Sophos-hosted infrastructure (USA, Germany, Ireland) with centralised management in Sophos Central
- Support for Office 365, Google Apps for Work, Exchange (from version 2003) and many others
Why do you need Sophos Central Email?
Many smaller companies - and we include ourselves here - don’t operate their own mail server, but instead rely on external providers or cloud services such as Office 365. That means you are dependent on the built-in security mechanisms of those cloud e-mail services, which are not sufficient to keep malicious and suspicious e-mail content out of a corporate network.
This is clearly a major issue, as e-mail is still the most popular tool used by cybercriminals to distribute malware. The question, therefore, is how you can ensure that moving to external resources does not automatically mean lowering your security posture.
With Sophos you already have the option of routing mail traffic through your own SG or XG. This is, however, somewhat risky, because in most cases the Sophos Firewall is not connected to two separate internet lines to guarantee high availability. If the firewall fails, no e-mails are delivered to the provider. This is precisely where Sophos Central Email comes into play.
Sophos provides a reliable, global infrastructure that is highly unlikely to go down. You can choose whether to route your e-mail via the US, Germany or Ireland. By changing the MX record in DNS, e-mails are first directed to Sophos, where they are scanned and then forwarded to your e-mail provider.
With Sophos Central Email you no longer have to rely solely on your provider’s built-in security features; instead, you benefit from proven e-mail security that is continuously updated by the global SophosLabs network.
Licensing model for Sophos Central Email
Sophos Central Email is available in “Standard” and “Advanced” editions. Sophos Central Email Advanced will not be released until Q1 2017.
Licensing is per user, with a minimum of five users. However, each user can have multiple e-mail addresses assigned.
Key features - Standard
- Office 365, Google Apps for Work, Exchange (from version 2003)
- Spam filter
- User portal for end users (quarantine, whitelist, blacklist)
- Spooling (if the mail server is unavailable, e-mails are retained and delivered later)
- Phishing URL protection
- Anti-spoofing (SPF and DKIM)
Additional features - Advanced (available from Q1 2017)
- Sophos Sandstorm (sandboxing for e-mails)
- Attachment filtering policy
Sophos Central Email quick tour
Try Sophos Central Email now!
If you don’t yet have a Sophos Central account, you can create one on the Sophos website and test all features, including “Sophos Central Email”, free of charge for 30 days.
If you already have a Sophos Central account and your 30-day trial period has expired, you can order a licence for “Sophos Central Email” in our shop:
More information about Sophos Central Email:
