Sophos Endpoint: Not for macOS Big Sur or Apple Silicon

In June Apple presented macOS 11 (Big Sur) to the public for the first time. Since then, it is possible for developers to prepare for the new version. Unfortunately, for Sophos this time was not quite enough.

Today, November 12, 2020, the new OS is available for no charge to all users. However, if you are using the Sophos Central Endpoint Client, you should not install the update yet, as Sophos’s endpoint protection will not work after that. 🤯

Sophos will soon be releasing a version that supports the new macOS through its Early Access Program (EAP). In December 2020 / January 2021 the final version should be released.

The Central Device Encryption version 1.5.3 already supports macOS 11, but since it is often installed with the endpoint protection, it is still necessary to wait.

Sophos and Apple Silicon

Also in June 2020 Apple talked about Apple Silicon for the first time. These are self-developed processors with the ARM architecture, which are already used in the iPhone or iPad, for example. These processors are now to be introduced in all Macs within the next 2 years. It was already known that the first hardware with the new chips will be available at the end of 2020.

Transition Kits were distributed in advance so that the developers could already test their software. On 10.11.2020 Apple already presented three new devices, which will arrive at the first customers at the end of November.

As Apple fanboys, we have of course also ordered a device.

Apple does not yet support ARM for Windows at this time. But we are working on it. I suspect that the ARM Macs will be supported sooner or later, but we don’t know anything about it at the moment.

Rosetta 2 (emulator)

Of course, depending on the software, 5 months is not enough time to rewrite the code for a new processor architecture. For this purpose, Apple has introduced Rosetta 2.

It is an emulator which is integrated in macOS Big Sur and enables ARM Macs to run Intel applications. Rosetta 2 essentially translates instructions written for Intel processors into instructions that Apple’s silicon chips understand. Developers do not have to make any changes to their old applications; they simply work.

We will certainly test for you whether this is true for Sophos products and whether the Central Endpoint Client can be easily emulated with Rosetta 2. 😇