Cybersecurity as a Service for AWS

I want to discuss the experience with Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service  products. I have familiarity with the service in general, but I do not have specific experience with Sophos.

Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service  on endpoint security is a standalone solution installed on the PC that can be left to customers to manage themselves. When it comes to as a service, this is something different where we subscribe to the service from the provider and then let them handle the administration of the security on the customer's end.

We do not have that service ourselves, but we resell and provide bundled solutions. This type of software allows customers with IT teams to handle the deployment themselves. Endpoint security is not complicated when it comes to deployment, and the IT team can do it on their own. The issue is that I am mentioning the need for more education because customers are using the solution, but I do not think they are maximizing the use or the functionalities of the solution.

Last week when we talked about Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service, I did not mention whether I was using it. However, I have a background with as a service solutions, but on a different solution.

The R&D team is very good in doing their task and continuously conducting research. I cannot comment on what could be added in future updates of Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service that they need to do. However, it is more about engagement with the customer. There are AIs and self-paced trainings available, but delivering it to the customers and forcing the customers to learn more about the product is something that needs to be addressed through customer engagement. This is not on Sophos side, because a lot of improvements have been done with your solution, so I cannot comment more about it.

The customer is looking at price perspective, but what is more important is the support. The ease of communicating with the technical support is number one. It is all about the support, and not only engaging support on some issues or concerns, but also providing education to the customers is important. Providing ways such as demo labs and online self-paced training that can be communicated by the distributor on how to access them and how to utilize and leverage all these things so that the information is properly distributed to our customers and to the partners is essential.

When I told you that I want to talk about it, it was because I want to know more about discussing Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service that Sophos is providing.

When it comes to the return on investment with the vulnerability solution, it is nice to have in the organization. However, when it comes to compliance, a third-party assessor is required. If I buy or if I am an organization who subscribes to or buys a solution like a vulnerability assessment tool, this is just a tool for the organization. It is better to buy it, but I do not think it can be used to submit to some compliance because a third-party assessor for vulnerability and penetration testing is needed. Huge organizations can have that so they have their own assessment on their own, but services to other or third parties must be done to comply with the requirement or the regulation for security.

Most of our customers are very cautious about the data that they are keeping, so they prefer buying Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service directly from Sophos or third-party vendors to building their infrastructure on their premises.

This is based on experience with not so huge customers. Our distributor is very supportive, and from their end, if we do not know how to escalate the problem to the support, they extend their help by doing so for us. If they can solve it on their own, then they help solve it. Support comes not only on problems in terms of security, but also on other matters such as concerns, questions, or inquiries about the license and inquiries about the best way to deploy it. The perspective comes from our distributor, and I would rate the overall review as an eight.

Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service  is an on-premise solution. This is the first implementation of Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service  with Citrix, and otherwise we are going with the Sophos XDR  solution instead of a third party, as we are currently using Trend Micro, which is not working properly with Sophos.

The thin client is not compatible with the Sophos firewall, and we found the fault in the Sophos solution. They have now released a light version of the XDR , and that type of activity is what we are coordinating in the backend.

The best feature of Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service is the XDR, along with remote management, which is particularly beneficial for small and medium environments.

We and our customers use the automated threat response feature, which is included but requires a license. For example, one of the banks using XDR provided by Sophos is very happy, and we conduct remote sessions with XDR, ensuring our involvement is minimal, leading to customer satisfaction.

I assess the value of deep visibility into network activities provided by Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service as good enough, especially regarding firewall and wireless aspects, with new switching features introduced that are acceptable.

There are a lot of technical issues with the implementation of Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service, particularly because we are currently implementing the XG series, where Citrix is the endpoint, leading to a lot of confusion. The XDR client is not working, so we are taking time for research and development, and they are providing us with whatever solutions from the company, even a lighter version of the XDR for this particular Citrix thin client.

Product-wise, improvements need to be made in Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service, particularly because they do not have a testing lab for the implemented customer environments. We have implemented a large environment where a number of problems occur, and they are unable to provide on-the-spot solutions, often taking five to ten days to set up a lab at the customer's premises to identify solutions.

I have been working with Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service since 1994, almost 30 years, starting with Astaro , which is the original security company that Sophos has taken over, and nowadays Sophos is the product.

I do not face many challenges, but we did encounter ransomware attacks at two to three locations, and Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service protected us immediately, within three to four seconds, providing alerts about ransomware threats, leading to automatic disconnections when necessary.

Cloud-based operation is nowadays required for centralized management since all servers and resources are being kept in the cloud, and future developments must trend towards cloud solutions.

However, we are not promoting cloud solutions to our customers, as our business remains focused on on-premise setups.

I rate the technical support of Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service an eight compared to Juniper, also an eight, but primarily due to timing issues. They are technically strong, but their resources are problematic, and timing is also an issue as nowadays people require solutions on-demand.

I am also a partner with Juniper, Cisco, and everything, because I am a system integrator, so I have to maintain relationships with all OEMs.

There is definitely a return on investment when using Sophos products; it all comes down to how deployment is managed, as policy is crucial. Initiating a deny everything approach before gradually allowing access is the best way to ensure security.

The pricing of Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service is approximately 60 percent that of Cisco, as Cisco requires a greater number of licenses to meet its requirements, while Sophos and Juniper, along with Fortinet, offer lower prices. In negotiations, Fortinet and Sophos have almost equal prices, allowing for competitiveness in order acquisition at the negotiation table, leading to price reductions.

This is the first implementation of Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service with Citrix, and otherwise we are going with the Sophos XDR solution instead of a third party, as we are currently using Trend Micro, which is not working properly with Sophos. The thin client is not compatible with the Sophos firewall, and we found the fault in the Sophos solution. They have now released a light version of the XDR, and that type of activity is what we are coordinating in the backend.

I do not fully understand the metric used to measure the effectiveness of Sophos threat intelligence capabilities. However, we do have one scheme, which involves dedicating manpower for customer support. For larger customers, we assign dedicated personnel who understand the ins and outs of their needs, which helps streamline processes without needing repeated explanations.

We work with Sophos XG  Firewall including Sophos Agent for Servers. Most of my customers are maintaining developer environments and want to secure their developer environments by preventing uploading and use of phishing websites and outbound emails to public email services like Hotmail and Gmail. They want to secure their environment to block users from sending emails to public email addresses and prevent uploads with this security measure.

Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service  offers very tight security and compliance. If anybody applies Sophos at their premises, the environment is completely secure and sound.

The biggest advantage I achieved with Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service  is the upload block. I never achieved it with other products, and Sophos completely delivered on this. We completely block uploads from any website and anywhere in the environment. No one can upload without our permission.

There are many reasons why Sophos is better in comparison with other solutions, but our focus was blocking uploads. The most important thing in our environment is blocking uploads, and we achieved this target with Sophos. Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service also protects against malicious websites and performs antivirus scanning and blocks all threats that any XG firewall is supposed to achieve.

The automated response is excellent because the portal handles almost everything on a single dashboard, and we can manage and control everything automatically. This is really systematic and automated. It is absolutely highly scalable.

I don't think there is anything to improve in my experience because I found Sophos already maintains regular updates and provides support portals in proper order. I don't find anything to recommend for improvement.

I have been working with Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service for around five years.

It is 99% stable.

The support I experienced is extremely good. I always found the support persons very friendly and helpful, and they always try to fix the service at any cost and are available anytime.

Before using Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service, we tried Cisco and other firewalls, but when we experienced Sophos, it really did what we wanted to achieve.

Previously we were using AWS , but recently we have moved to a hosting service. Both are compatible with using Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service.

I found the installation is very simple. I just need to run the installer and it completes in one go by itself. There is no complex installation required.

Our service provider in Canada is the company NE Format. The representative is Saif Khan. He provides all Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service-related services to us. He controls many things on his end, including the portal management of Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service, and I just look after the user environment. The provider manages it at their end, and Mr. Saif Khan from NE Format in Canada handles the implementation.

For the Pakistan region, this is very expensive. Not anyone can afford it. It is expensive, but it is worthwhile for paying the investment. However, it is not affordable for everyone. Only very high and large enterprises can afford it.

I never bought any service of Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service from anywhere else because we bought it from a reseller located in Canada who handles everything for us.

Users never prefer to be blocked from performing activities. If you block users from doing activities, they do not prefer it. That is a security requirement, but as a technical provider, I understand this is important to do. We are using a product that offers EDR as well. I rate this review as a 10 out of 10.

We are working with Trend Micro as a competitor, and it is also a great experience. I am using Trend AI Vision One. I know the Secureworks product for XDR  and EDR; I know they acquired Secureworks. We do not have any customers of Secureworks yet, but we are trying to pitch it and develop some business with Secureworks as well. We are working with Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service .

We started working with Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service  last year and we have some customers for Sophos in the resolution which is Cybersecurity as a Service. Sophos teams work with these customers to secure them and integrate them in case of any issues, and they are really satisfied with the product; it is a good one.

Customers basically use Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service against ransomware attacks, especially when they are not in their operational hours such as during the night, on weekends, or holidays when their team is not directly available in the premises to secure something. In that case, they need these services so that someone reliable is watching their network to avoid any ransomware attacks.

There are multiple benefits of Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service. The biggest one is that it will save any stoppage of services; for example, if there is a hospital environment that faces any ransomware attack, it may stop their operations. This solution helps them to maintain their uptime and ensure business continuity 100%, which is a very good thing. Secondly, it helps avoid financial losses; once the data of the company is encrypted due to a ransomware attack, they obviously face financial losses and may be asked for bigger ransom amounts. Sometimes a company has to pay them; to avoid these issues, there is no surety of getting data back even after paying the ransom. Additionally, there are various kinds of attacks nowadays, such as CNC attacks, where someone may be using their resources for bad purposes; these services stop any unethical behavior, ultimately helping the customer to increase their productivity and financial growth.

The automated threat response feature of Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service is definitely very helpful.

Most of the companies do not have cybersecurity experts, particularly mid-level or small enterprises; they cannot afford cybersecurity experts or SOC teams. With this product, they do not need to go through extensive learning in cybersecurity; the automatic mitigation helps them to focus on their work and avoid problematic behaviors. There are some IT staff who do not have any security background, which means they do not need to get involved when reliable products are handling this.

Network visibility with Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service is positive and brings benefits; they are connected with your network, providing a larger view and a dedicated team who understands all the ins and outs. For instance, some equipment such as PBX systems or CCTV cameras in the network typically are not viewed as potential threats, but these services help monitor even those, ensuring protection.

Features such as threat hunting and forensics are definitely effective for cybersecurity; for example, we might not know if our management team addresses, such as our CFO or CEO email addresses, are being misused on the dark web for phishing attacks. These solutions help us to see any misuse of our resources, effectively preventing such issues.

I would suggest improvements such as integrating a third-party platform or making the products mature enough for customers who do not use Sophos switches or similar hardware, allowing security integration. If a firewall or another security solution could learn logs from attacks originating from switches or CCTV systems, it should be accessible enough for a regular network engineer or security engineer to understand and handle.

Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service does not have any glitches; it is very stable.

It is very scalable without any limitations.

The customer support from Sophos is great; they are very supportive and available 24/7. It depends upon the region, but they are accessible whenever we approach them, and they engage their development team and a global escalation team when needed, providing an exceptionally strong support system.

We work with other products as well, but we are the Platinum Partner of Sophos in Pakistan.

It is very easy to install, and I give full marks for the easiness of the solution.

I believe it is more than 30% ROI. While it is hard to quantify exactly, when you consider data theft and customers protecting billion-dollar data assets, the price of the solution is only about $4,000 to $5,000 per year. The ROI provided by these solutions is more than 100%, making it a very economical choice, thus worth buying.

The price for Sophos is somewhere in the middle; it is a good price. They offer good discounts for customers and have competitive pricing when compared to their competition such as Trend Micro and other high-end products. It is very aggressive pricing.

Sophos Cybersecurity as a Service utilizes its own cloud, which may have integrations with other services, but they provide their cloud for customer console access.

Centralized management is very important for cloud-based operations because most companies have multiple branches and offices in different cities. It really helps us manage, especially if a customer has 300 firewalls and 2000 endpoints spread across various offices; it becomes much easier to manage everything centrally. If they need to push a policy for internet validation, all their endpoints or users can be managed from a single interface, which is very effective.

It is not exactly a disadvantage, but it does impact the company financially. These are services that the company must purchase, whether from Sophos or other providers, which impacts their finances. Thirty or forty years ago, without internet or network connectivity, companies did not have to worry about data theft and could focus on operations. Now, no solution can guarantee 100% security. Unless a company invests in a firewall for network security, endpoint protection, network detection and response, MDR, security-as-services, and patch management, their finances are heavily drained due to these cybersecurity solutions, and this burden will only increase over time. Other than that, I do not find any disadvantages; the products are very good and competitive.

I give this solution a rating of 9 out of 10. It is worth buying and definitely provides ROI.