Sophos - Experts & Thought Leaders

Sophos, a global pioneer of innovative security solutions for defeating cyberattacks, announced that its Sophos Managed Detection and Response (MDR) service has reached a major milestone, now protecting more than 26,000 organisations globally, growing its customer base by 37% in 2024. This achievement highlights the increasing demand for Sophos’ proactive, expert-led security solutions, which help organisations of all sizes stay protected 24/7 against increasingly sophisticated cyber threats, including the most advanced ransomware, business email compromise (BEC) and phishing attacks. Sophos MDR capabilities Sophos MDR offers a wide suite of abilities that go beyond standard threat containment Sophos MDR offers a comprehensive suite of capabilities that go beyond standard threat containment to include full-scale incident response, such as root cause analysis, the removal of malicious tools or artefacts used by attackers, and investigations across customers’ environments to ensure adversaries are fully ejected to prevent another attack.  What further differentiates Sophos is that these incident response services are included with Sophos MDR on an unlimited basis, meaning customers are not additionally charged and there is no limit on the number of incident response hours. Breach protection warranty Sophos MDR Complete also includes a breach protection warranty covering up to $1 million USD in incident response expenses. Sophos provides flexibility for how customers can work with the MDR analysts, including the ability to pre-authorise them to contain an active threat. Sophos investment in MDR and new features Sophos has made significant investments into its MDR offering with increased analyst capacity, AI-assisted workflows, new features and expanded integrations to help deliver the best possible outcomes through improved protection, detection and investigation of threats. Sophos has added the following new features: Proof of Value: New Sophos MDR service insights to explain the MDR team’s actions including highlighting the human hours spent threat hunting and creating and tuning detections. High-value dashboard enhancements include details of MITRE ATT&CK tactics uncovered in proactive threat hunts conducted by Sophos’ MDR team, MDR analyst coverage, case investigation summaries and an account health check status. Enhanced Security for Microsoft Customers: New Sophos-proprietary detections for Microsoft Office 365 identify threats including business email compromise and adversary in the middle account takeover attacks, independent of the customer’s Microsoft licence level. Expanded Compatibility with Third Parties: This expanded ecosystem of turnkey integrations with third-party cybersecurity and IT tools includes a new Backup and Recovery integration category. Proactive Vulnerability Mitigation: Sophos Managed Risk powered by Tenable provides attack surface vulnerability management as a new managed service option for Sophos MDR customers. Efficiency and Automation: Sophos MDR has added AI-powered workflows to streamline the operational processes and drive better security outcomes for their customers. This innovation delivers a reduced mean time to respond (MTTR) through more efficient triage, while also ensuring that all legitimate threats are rapidly investigated. This enables analysts to concentrate on other tasks such as threat hunting, account health monitoring and detection engineering. New offerings and integrations “Attackers are continuously advancing their tactics to outmanoeuvre traditional security defences,” said Rob Harrison, senior vice president of product management at Sophos. “Our customers rely on Sophos MDR to help their organisations tackle today’s threats 24/7 with full-scale incident response to remove active adversaries and conduct root cause analysis to identify the underlying issues that led to an incident." "We’re consistently evolving our solutions with new offerings and integrations, just like attackers are constantly evolving their tactics, so customers can disrupt threats before they escalate into destructive attacks.” Better together: Sophos MDR integrations Sophos has invested significantly in third-party integrations for its MDR customers to ingest and analyse events and alerts from an even broader range of tools and products, while also expanding propriety detections based on suspicious behaviour identified in Microsoft environments. This includes: A new Backup and Recovery integration pack with Acronis, Rubrik and Veeam integrations to strengthen defences against ransomware. Microsoft Office 365 Management Activity integrations, enabling the ingestion of audit logs and security alerts across the Microsoft ecosystem. More than 9,000 customers have this integration in the Sophos MDR solution. Sophos MDR accolades Sophos MDR has received multiple recognitions and accolades from customers, analysts and media in 2024: Sophos named a pioneer in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Managed Detection and Response (MDR) 2024 Vendor Assessment Sophos named a pioneer in the IDC MarketScape: European Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Services in 2024 Vendor Assessment. Sophos named a pioneer in Frost & Sullivan’s 2024 Frost Radar™ for Global Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Sophos MDR declared the Winner of the “Best Managed Detection and Response Service” award in the 2024 SC Awards, and "Best Managed Security Service" award in the 2024 SC Awards Europe Sophos named a Gartner® Peer Insights™ Customers' Choice for MDR Services for the 2nd year in a row Sophos MDR named CRN 2024 Products of The Year for Revenue and Profit Threat landscape from Sophos MDR In the last 12 months, Sophos shared findings from the following MDR cases it analysed for customers: In December 2024, Sophos released The Bite from Inside: The Sophos Active Adversary Report that provides an in-depth look at the changing behaviours and attack techniques that adversaries used in the first half of 2024. The data is derived from nearly 200 IR and MDR cases and found that attackers are looking for ways to hide in plain sight by abusing trusted applications or “Living off the Land” binaries or LOLbins. Sophos saw a 51% increase in abusing these applications. Sophos X-Ops released information that it is seeing an uptick of Akira ransomware cases across its MDR and Incident Response customers with eight cases since November 2024 across Akira’s 127 victims disclosed in the past six months. In June 2024, Sophos MDR published details on a nearly two-year long cyber espionage campaign they uncovered against a high-level government entity in Southeast Asia. The operation, which Sophos named Crimson Palace, involved three separate clusters of threat activity that overlapped with several well-known Chinese nation-state groups. What Sophos MDR customers are saying Sophos was named a Customers’ Choice vendor in the second Gartner® Peer Insights™ Voice of the Customer Report for MDR. Sophos scored the highest overall customer rating of 4.9/5, based on 344 reviews, as of Sept. 30, 2024, with verified customer reviews celebrating Sophos MDR’s innovation. Here’s what customers are saying about Sophos MDR: “Earlier it was very difficult for us to manage the alerts and incidents generated by the tools and technology but after MDR deployment we have complete peace of mind. We also have other products from Sophos so our overall experience from a manageability point of view is also good,” from assistant director of IT in the healthcare and biotech industry. “Sophos MDR is a wonderful product and services by Sophos, you don't need a SOC after getting MDR,” from an IT manager in the IT services industry.  “Sophos MDR is one of the best in the market. It’s a good service to have good sleep at night, as the burden of threat hunting is offloaded,” from an IT infrastructure specialist in the retail industry. “We have had an incredibly positive experience using Sophos MDR. We rest more easily knowing that their team is acting as an extension of our own team in doing threat hunting/detection/remediation in our environment on a 24/7 basis,” from an operations associate.

Sophos, a global pioneer of innovative security solutions for defeating cyberattacks announced the appointment of Andy Travers as regional vice president for EMEA North to further accelerate the growth of Sophos’ portfolio of cybersecurity services and products in the region.  Andy Travers Travers will drive growth by strengthening existing relationships and creating new opportunities with Sophos’ already strong customer base of more than 600,000 organisations worldwide. Travers will work closely with Sophos’ Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to ensure that customers are equipped with the right security solutions to combat cyber threats, such as ransomware, data breaches, and other persistent cyberattacks. Work experience  Travers was CRO at OSF Digital, where he worked to grow revenue streams and maximise profitability Before joining Sophos, Travers was chief revenue officer (CRO) at OSF Digital, where he worked to grow revenue streams and maximise profitability. Before that, he led sales organisations at Exclusive Networks, Juniper Networks, F5, and Fortinet. Travers has extensive experience developing sales strategies and operations for customers ranging from small and medium-sized businesses to some of the largest telecommunication firms in multiple geographic regions. New responsibilities Leaning on his 25 years’ experience, Andy will be focused on driving revenue growth for partners and MSPs, prioritising Sophos’ complete portfolio of Managed Detection and Response (MDR) services and endpoint, network, email, and cloud security. Sophos solutions work within the Sophos Central management platform, which also enables partners and MSPs to streamline operations for customers and easily handle upgrades, renewals, and much more. Cybersecurity and managed security services "I’m thrilled to join Sophos at such an exciting stage of its growth," said Andy Travers, regional vice president of EMEA North. "With its outstanding reputation for innovation in cybersecurity technology and managed security services, Sophos is at the forefront of helping businesses protect themselves from ransomware, data breaches, and other high-risk cyber threats that could have devastating impacts." "I will be collaborating closely with our channel partners, MSPs, and global teams to accelerate revenue growth in the region." Channel-first approach Gerard Allison, senior vice president of EMEA, Sophos, added, “Andy’s appointment is another demonstration of our commitment to a channel-first approach." "The best way to strengthen our MSP and channel partner relationships at the mid-market level is to ensure that partner organisations have the best resources at hand when it comes to defeating cyberattacks, which is what Andy will lead. I’m excited to have Andy on board to maximise his experience and expertise to further Sophos’ growth in EMEA North.”

Sophos and Secureworks®, two global pioneers of innovative security solutions for defeating cyberattacks, announced a definitive agreement for Sophos to acquire Secureworks. The all-cash transaction is valued at approximately USD 859 million. Sophos is backed by Thoma Bravo, a pioneering software investment firm.  Secureworks’ operations Sophos’ experience and reputation as a pioneering provider of managed security services Sophos’ experience and reputation as a pioneering provider of managed security services and end-to-end security products, combined with Secureworks’ security operations expertise transformed into the Taegis™ platform, is expected to further deliver complementary advanced MDR and XDR solutions for the benefit of their global customer bases. Together, they will help strengthen the resilience and security posture of global organisations of any size with a combination of security controls, AI, world-class threat intelligence, and two teams with decades of cybersecurity expertise.    Integrate solutions Sophos expects to integrate solutions from both companies into a broader and stronger security portfolio benefiting small, mid- and enterprise customers.  This includes Sophos expanding its current portfolio with other new offerings like identity detection and response (ITDR), next-gen SIEM capabilities, operational technology (OT) security, and enhanced vulnerability risk prioritisation. Taegis XDR platform As two partner-centric organisations, the combination of Sophos and Secureworks will enable the combined company to expand its market presence to create greater value within the channel and strengthen the overall security community.   “Secureworks offers an innovative, market-pioneering solution with their Taegis XDR platform. Combined with our security solutions and industry leadership in MDR, we will strengthen our collective position in the market and provide better outcomes for organisations of all sizes globally," said Joe Levy, CEO of Sophos. Cybercriminal ecosystem Cyber risk persists to escalate, driven by a flush cybercriminal ecosystem and geopolitical pressures Sophos added: “Secureworks’ renowned expertise in cybersecurity perfectly aligns with our mission to protect businesses from cybercrime by delivering powerful and intuitive products and services. This acquisition represents a significant step forward in our commitment to building a safer digital future for all.”   Cyber risk continues to escalate, driven by a rampant cybercriminal ecosystem and global geopolitical pressures. Combined, Sophos and Secureworks share a long history of having exceptional threat intelligence, security operations, incident response, and innovative security product capabilities that help organisations defeat these adversaries.  Sophos’ portfolio “Our mission at Secureworks has always been to secure human progress. Sophos’ portfolio of pioneering endpoint, cloud, and network security solutions – in combination with our XDR-powered managed detection and response – is exactly what organisations are looking for to strengthen their security posture and collectively turn the tide against the adversary,” said Wendy Thomas, CEO, Secureworks. “As Joe and I both believe, this transaction will strengthen our go-to-market offering with Sophos’ global scale, expertise and reputation.”