“Cybersecurity awareness for our customers and partners is one of the key focus areas for Sophos”

Sunil Sharma
Managing Director Sales, Sophos India & SAARC

Measures adopted: As many companies are adopting WFH as a permanent company policy or even the adoption of hybrid working solutions, this shift has certainly caused some critical challenges for businesses in terms of cybersecurity. Some of the protective measures we recommend are:

Ensure devices and systems are fully protected and security solutions are up to date with the latest patches and versions. All too often malware breaches an organisation’s defenses via an unpatched or unprotected device.

Create a secure connection back to the office using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) ensures that all the data transferred between the home user and the office network is encrypted and protected in transit.

Scan and secure email and establish healthy practice

Home working has led to a big increase in email as people can no longer speak to colleagues in person. The crooks are wise to this and are already using phishing emails to entice users to click on malicious links. Ensure email protection is up-to-date and raise awareness of phishing.

Enable web filtering
Applying web filtering rules on devices will ensure that users can only access content appropriate for ‘work’ while protecting them from malicious websites.

Make sure people have a way to report security issues

With home working people can’t walk over to the IT team if they have an issue. Give people a quick and easy way to report security issues.

Educating customers & employees: We have a dedicated tool-Sophos Phish Threat that provides phishing attack simulation and training for end users. It helps our customers to nurture a culture of positive security awareness. Effective security training is also a part of Sophos Phish Threat, available through Sophos Central, which is a cloud-based management platform. Additionally, our customers can take advantage of more than 30 security awareness training modules, covering both security and compliance topics. Sophos Phish Threat integrates testing and training into simple, easy-to-use campaigns that provide automated on-the-spot training to employees as necessary. 

Upcoming threat: Sophos Intercept X combines ransomware protection, deep learning malware detection, exploit prevention, End Point Detection and Response (EDR) - all in a single solution. Sophos’ synchronized security strategy enables multiple security products to work together seamlessly with simpler management and better security. It allows Sophos endpoint (Intercept X) and firewall (XG firewall) to share threat intelligence, and provide faster comprehensive protection against advanced threats like ransomware. 

Safeguarding customers & employees: Sophos has always been prepared for the reality of a remote workforce.  Additionally, our Sophos partners can easily provide cybersecurity solutions and services to their customers, by using the many options from our portfolio that secure the current fluctuating protocols around remote working such as in Sophos’ RED (Remote Ethernet Devices), VPNs (IPSEC and SSL), virtual firewalls, and synchronized security.