BOSTON - June 28, 2010 - IT security and data protection firm
Sophos today announced that it continues to proactively protect
K-12 school
districts from the latest security threats.
Some of nation's largest and most reputable school districts
such as Miami-Dade
County Public Schools and St. Louis Public
Schools entrust Sophos with safeguarding their networks against
today's sophisticated and fast-moving threats. Notably, Sophos's
ever-expanding K-12 customer list now includes Metropolitan
Nashville Public Schools, Spokane Public Schools in Washington, and
the Recovery School District in Louisiana.
Schools today face myriad challenges - multiple threat vectors,
rising threat levels, targeted and sophisticated attacks,
compliance and regulation mandates, tighter budgets, a plethora of
complex security vendor solutions to choose from constrained IT
resources, and computer savvy students that may or may not
intentionally seek ways to circumvent school security policies set
by the school.
Sophos has long offered advanced security protection while
reducing the security-related challenges for IT administrators. The
company continues to help K-12 IT administrators conquer these
obstacles by empowering them with complete IT security and data
protection solutions that are easy to deploy, manage and
maintain.
Sophos Adds "Live" Protection Technologies to Block Malware
Outbreaks in Real-Time
Staying ahead of the escalating threat landscape requires
proactive detection technologies like Host Intrusion Prevention
System (HIPS) and cloud-based malware lookups. Earlier this month,
Sophos introduced Sophos Live
Protection, an advancement pioneered by SophosLabs, that is now
integrated into Sophos Endpoint Security and Data Protection. This
new cloud-based architecture arms customers with the most extensive
combination of real-time threat protection against malware,
malicious URLs, and spam, and real-time feedback to security and
application policy settings.
Sophos Live Protection simplifies the rollout of proactive
protection for students, staff, and faculty inside and outside the
school's network - allowing them to get the protection they need
against today's rapidly moving threats such as hijacked websites
and targeted malware attacks - without adding additional IT
security management overhead. What does this mean for customers?
SophosLabs does the heavy lifting for IT administrators by
fine-tuning HIPS, maintaining application and device control lists,
and delivering real-time threat protection.
Growth by Listening to Customer Needs - Delivering More
Value-Added Security
This past fiscal year, Sophos saw tremendous demand from the
U.S. K-12 market. The company experienced a 40 percent
year-over-year growth in this sector and achieved more than an 80
percent retention rate. To date, Sophos has approximately 25
percent of the nation's K-12 market share.
"Today's K-12 IT administrators are overwhelmed. Challenged with
limited staff and budget, students who find clever ways to bypass
web browsing policies and exacting compliance and regulation
mandates that are closely scrutinized, they need to implement
security as efficiently and effectively as possible," said David
Peck, Public Sector Manager at Sophos. "To arm our customers in
that process, we've added more features and functionality,
including the most advanced intelligence from SophosLabs, so that
they realize more value and protection for their anti-virus budget.
Sophos's steady growth and high retention rate indicates that
customers trust and value our products and services, and that is
definitely something that we are fully committed to
maintaining."
"We selected Sophos Endpoint Security and Data Protection for
several reasons. Sophos's centralized management console gives my
team better visibility and control over our network, security
updates are incredibly timely and go virtually unnoticed by end
users, additional features like application control and DLP are
included without additional costs and administration effort, and
the sales and technical support teams are extremely knowledgeable,
reliable, and professional," said Roderick D. Matthews, IT Director
at the Recovery School District Operations Department. "Sophos
continues to strengthen its security offerings without tacking on
additional steps for administrators - a major benefit to the IT
team as they can dedicate more time and resources to other critical
areas."
Sophos Continues to Deliver Complete Transparent,
Easy-to-Manage Perimeter Defense
For 25 years, Sophos has been in the business of analyzing and
protecting against viruses and other security threats. Today,
Sophos's portfolio of Security and Data Protection solutions spans
all points of the network, proactively thwarting security threats
with minimal time and effort.
-
Sophos
Endpoint Security and Data Protection
integrates more
than just anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-spyware, and firewall
technologies. Sophos has integrated HIPS, application and device
control, data leakage prevention, encryption, and network access
control (NAC) - adding more value for the cost of most
organizations' anti-virus budget. In fact, the company includes all
security updates and intelligence from SophosLabs, product upgrades, support,
as well as a Sophos Competitor Removal Tool.
Sophos provides additional lines of defense to schools by
offering email and web gateways, which provides the same
effectiveness and simplicity as the endpoint.
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Sophos Web
Security and Control
blocks spyware, viruses,
phishing, malware, anonymizing proxies and unwanted applications at
the gateway and enables comprehensive web access control for safe,
productive web browsing. Unlike traditional solutions, Sophos web
appliances eliminate the time-consuming task of searching for, and
blocking, anonymizing proxies by using reputation-based service and
a real-time proxy detection.
-
Sophos Email Security and Data Protection
enables
complete security and data protection across the entire email
infrastructure - from the gateway to the workgroup server -
eliminating known and unknown threats including spam, phishing and
malware, and preventing information leakage and compliance
violations. It enables safe, productive internal and external email
communication with minimal administrative and end-user effort.
Get the Latest Security Tips from Sophos - Download the K-12
Security Toolkit
Sophos has always supported the education of computer users by
sharing its best computing
practices with enterprises, educational institutions - both
K-12 and colleges/universities - and government organizations. The
company offers a K-12 Security
Toolkit, seminars,
booklets, and a dedicated section on Sophos.com. Additionally,
Sophos extends free home use for customers' students, staff,
faculty, and employees to ensure consistent security - especially
with the continued intersection of home, work and school life.
Learn How Sophos K-12 Customers Stop Threats with Sophos - Read
the Latest Success Snapshots
Read the latest case
studies to learn how K-12 customers are benefiting from Sophos
Security and Data Protection solutions
Meet the Sophos K-12 Team and Security Experts - Stop by the
Sophos Booth at ISTE 2010
Visit Sophos (Booth # 2027) at the International Society for Technology in Education
(ISTE®) in Denver, Colorado on June 28-30, 2010.
Sophos is headquartered in Boston, US and Oxford, UK. More information is available at www.sophos.com.