Sophos is a developer and vendor of security software and hardware, including anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam, network access control, encryption software and data loss prevention for desktops, servers, email systems and other network gateways.
SophosLabs is the company's global network of threat analysis centers.
Company profile
Founded in 1985 by Dr. Peter Lammer and Dr. Jan Hruska, Sophos is a privately-owned company and is co-headquartered in Abingdon, UK and Burlington, Massachusetts, USA. The company has subsidiaries and branch offices in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore and Spain. The company employs approximately 1,800 staff worldwide.
Unlike other security companies, Sophos does not produce anti-virus and anti-spam solutions for home users, but instead has always focused on the business market.
During the early years in the late 1980's and into the 1990's Sophos grew steadily, although mainly in the UK selling a range of security technologies including encryption tools still used widely in the banking community. Late in the 1990's faced with slowing growth and reducing profit Sophos concentrated its efforts onto sales of anti-virus technology and embarked on an ambitious program of international expansion during which the subsidiary operations were formed and the transition to selling with partners was made. Rapid growth and healthy cash generation enabled Sophos to create a globally recognised brand as well as impressive HQ facilities in the UK. A solid cash base and continued sustained growth also enabled the acquisition of new technology to broaden the product roadmap so that by 2005 Sophos was widely known as a significant competitor in the IT security market.
From September 2003 to February 2006, Sophos served as the parent company of ActiveState, a developer of programming tools for dynamic programming languages. In February 2006, ActiveState became an independent company when it was sold to Vancouver-based venture capitalist firm Pender Financial.
In 2006, Steve Munford was named CEO of Sophos, and Hruska and Lammer announced they would remain as co-founders and members of the board of directors. Munford was the president of ActiveState prior to its acquisition by Sophos in 2003, and from 2003 to 2005 was president of Sophos's North American operations. In 2005, he became chief operating officer, responsible for the day-to-day running of the company and its senior management team. Munford holds a Bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Western Ontario, and an MBA from Queen's University.
In 2007, Sophos acquired ENDFORCE, a company based in Ohio, USA which develops and sells security policy compliance and Network Access Control (NAC) software.
In 2008, Sophos announced its intent to acquire Utimaco Safeware AG. [1]
In October 2008, Sophos was named one of "Canada's Top 100 Employers" by Mediacorp Canada Inc., and was featured in Maclean's newsmagazine. Later that month, Sophos was also named one of BC's Top Employers, which was announced by The Vancouver Sun, The Province and the Victoria Times-Colonist.[2]
In January 2009, Sophos announced job cuts totalling "five per cent [...] in our total workforce", including 30 at the company's headquarters in Abingdon.[3]
On July 1, 2009, Sophos completes integration of Utimaco.[4]
Sophos's anti-virus engine and identities are now packaged into Webroot Spy Sweeper with Anti-Virus.
In September 2009, Sophos have announced plans to release Sophos Endpoint Security and Control, version 9.0 [5]
In October 2009, Sophos released Sophos Endpoint Security and Control 9, Sophos Enterprise Console 4 and Sophos Control Center 4
Research
SophosLabs specialists analysed the global spread of spam messages. As a part of the Sophos global spam monitoring network the company's spam filters, installed in different companies, were able to catch spam messages. Thus SophosLabs experts were able to discover that during the third quarter of 2007 the USA was at the top of the list among 12 countries from which spam was sent. The United States registered 28.4% of global spam. The second came South Korea, with 5.2% of global spam.[6]
Products
- Sophos Endpoint Security and Data Protection
- Sophos Anti-Virus
- Sophos Client Firewall
- Enterprise console
- PureMessage (for Unix, Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Domino)
- Sophos Email Appliance
- Sophos Web Appliance and Security Management Appliance
- Sophos for Microsoft SharePoint
- Sophos Safeguard
- SAV Interface
- NAC Advanced
- Sophos Mobile Security
References
External links
