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Sophos Cloud – More than just an antivirus

Update: Sophos renamed the product “Sophos Cloud” to “Sophos Central” in August 2016. Various links in this article have been adjusted and refer to the current Central products.

Sophos products are really amazing. One of our newest favorites is Sophos Cloud. STOP… do not click away yet! I know my first thought was also, “Cloud?” My second thought was again, “Cloud storage from Sophos with encryption?” No, all-clear, no cloud storage. As I said, we think Sophos products are really great, but the product names are just a horror! How are we supposed to sell a product to a customer in this day and age that has the word “cloud” in its name?

In this blog post, I’d like to take a closer look at the Sophos Cloud product and explain how much “cloud” is really behind it and what benefits it can bring to a business.

Sophos Security Services

The title is an invention of ours, as it accurately describes what the Sophos Cloud Central really is.

Sophos Cloud is currently an antivirus and management is in the cloud. Sophos offers several types of antivirus solutions:

  • Antivirus Standalone – Easy to use on PC or Mac
  • Antivirus on Premise – The management console is installed on the Windows server in the company.
  • Antivirus on the UTM – management via the Sophos UTM web interface
  • Antivirus in the cloud – management from the browser in the cloud

The crazy thing is that each of these variants has different functions and features. If there are any questions about the exact differences, just contact us. With our customers in the past, we have particularly used the antivirus on the UTM, Sophos UTM Endpoint Protection. Since features haven’t been added since what felt like 2013 and the roadmap has been trimmed down, we’ll be relying more on Sophos Cloud in the future.

If you want to learn more about the different variants and options of Sophos’s endpoint protection, we recommend reading through this datasheet.

Sophos Cloud

But now let’s get to the real core topic of this blog post, the Sophos Cloud. In short, it is a security solution for endpoints (PC, Mac, Windows Server, Linux Server, iOS, Android and soon Windows Phone) with a management console in the cloud.

Performance

No one wants the installation of a virus scanner to slow down their computer. From my personal experience, however, I can say quite clearly at this point that Sophos works very well compared to other large manufacturers! This is also confirmed once again in the following graphic. Whether server or client, the system does not feel slow in any way.

Sophos Endpoint Protection Performance

Licensing

Before we get to safety, which should really come first, I would first like to briefly discuss costs. The interesting thing is that Sophos Cloud is not licensed per client, but per user. So, for example, if an employee has a Windows workstation, a Mac, a notebook and two to three smartphones, the price remains the same. Admittedly, this example is a bit of an exaggeration and probably doesn’t quite reflect the average employee. 😉 For the servers, licensing is per system. Whether a physical or virtual server. One license per OS is valid. If that was not detailed enough for you, you can also read the corresponding article in our knowledge base: How is Sophos Central licensed?

Security

In terms of detection rate in protection against malware, Sophos receives top marks in current tests. It is also worth noting that Sophos is sustainably in the upper right quadrant of Vendor Landscape. This, in turn, shows that this product is not only safe in the short term, but that work is actually being done on it.

Updates

Sophos Cloud Dashboard

For us, the most important thing is that a software gets an update every now and then. For example, before I buy an app on my smartphone, I look to see when it was last updated. Anything older than 1 year is dead to me. At 6 months, I’m already a bit skeptical. Of course, this is where the tech nerd in me speaks. 🙂 Sophos completely satisfies this need for me. Every 30 days, Sophos Cloud receives minor updates, and every 90 days, it receives major updates that also affect the management interface. Virus definitions are updated several times a day, of course. The updates run fully automatically, as you might know from other services like Office 365 or AWS.

More than just an antivirus

The Sophos Cloud is more than just an antivirus. For us internally, it is a complete Sophos Security Service. The product is constantly being developed and new functions added. The last renewal was the web gateway. Among other things, data encryption is also planned.

Test Sophos Central (formerly Sophos Cloud)

If you really want to try Sophos Central now, we offer a free 30-day trial! Simply fill out the form at the following URL and enjoy the full features of Sophos Central for 30 days!

Patrizio
Patrizio

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