Sophos XGS Firewall

Hackers are always looking for new ways into our computer network. Cybercriminals exploit weaknesses and a prominent current cyber liability is that many companies do not use SSL inspection. Network Administrators are hesitant to use SSL inspection, fearing that it will slow down their systems' overall performance and functionality. Also, as 90% of web activity is encrypted, many firewalls cannot catch malicious ones.

Our team had read a lot about Sophos XGS Firewall and we were excited to put it through our testing process. From the start, we found it easy to install and configure. Over our test period, we also found the Sophos platform to be very stable, with easy-to-read logs and graphs. Sophos XGS also lived up to its claims of delivering protection and visibility without compromising performance. This state-of-the-art version of Sophos XG adds Xstream architecture which literally doubles the processing speed. Sophos XGS Firewall removes the cloak of encrypted traffic and uses SSL inspection without compromising performance. In addition, Sophos Firewall uses a highspeed Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) engine that scans your web traffic for cyber threats without reduced performance from a proxy. The increased speed really got our testers' attention.

Also, Sophos XGS Firewall blocked much of the current ransomware and data breaches with high-performance streaming DPI, including next-gen IPS, web protection, and app control. Sophos XGS Firewall also offers deep learning and sandboxing, which, over time, will make the XGS firewall even more powerful and comprehensive. Traffic identified as Trusted can "jump the line" and be redirected to FastPath. This function allows for added capacity for "safe" traffic that does not require deep packet inspection.

Sophos Central is the master single-pane dashboard to manage Sophos XGS firewall and an array of other Sophos security tools. Sophos Firewall is the only network security solution that can fully identify the user and source of an infection on your network and automatically limit access to other network resources in response. It makes setup, monitoring, and management of the Sophos XGS Firewall simple. Other features include alerting, backup management, one-click firmware updates and rapid creation of new firewalls. Central Reporting includes powerful reporting tools that offer superior visualization of the entire network, application activity, web, and security over time. You may also choose between the reports included with Sophos or customizing your own reports. Sophos reporting flexibility made it easy for our testers to maintain a clear perspective on potential network threats.

Finally, Sophos XGS Firewall is the only network security module that can identify the user and source of an infection on your network. Then it automatically limits cross-network access to prevent the attack from spreading. This feature is "the icing on the cake" for Sophos XGS, which we found to be an outstanding product.

Rating

Overall

5/5