A few months ago, Sophos announced that Intercept X Essentials and Intercept X Essentials for Server are now available for purchase. Corporate Armor has made a big deal about the Intercept X family of Endpoint Protection solutions. And this product really appears to fill in a thin spot in the series. And that thin spot is/was small organizations that want the best protection but don’t need full control and management capabilities. In other words, little guys that need some, but not all, the bells and whistles that Intercept X Advanced offers.
Intercept X Essentials includes the most powerful defensive features from Intercept X. This is things like deep learning AI, anti-ransomware and anti-exploit techniques. But customers will only have access to base policies. They do not have app control, web control, peripheral control, DLP, threat cases or controlled updates.
Anyone that requires multiple, configurable policies or control capabilities should choose one of the Intercept X Advanced solutions.
A little refresher about Intercept X Advanced
The Sophos Intercept X Advanced series is ideal for businesses with an Information Technology team and many endpoints to protect. If your business includes hundreds or even thousands of endpoints, Sophos Intercept X is a potent protection product.
Still, it is a great solution for any sized business. It’s capable of protecting both of the main desktop operating systems as well as mobile device platforms. Basically, Sophos checks all the boxes for about any business and does so at a very competitive price.
The Intercept X platform merges technologies such as deep learning, AI and endpoint detection and response to provide holistic endpoint security. Today, the company’s products protect over 400,000 organizations.
It works for Mac and Windows personal computers (PCs) as well as servers, virtual machines, and cloud-based IT infrastructure. It also protects mobile devices using Android, iOS, and Chrome operating systems. Sophos Intercept X offers such expansive capabilities, it’s easy to find value in the solution.
How is Intercept X Essentials different?
As already stated in a nutshell, it gives you the protection of Intercept X, with reduced control and management capabilities. Deep Learning and anti-ransomware ARE included.
But a few thing are pared off. For example, you get only the base policy; not multiple policies. Peripheral control is excluded, too. This would allow you to limit what devices users plug in. You do not have control over the timing of updates, and web control is also absent. So you can’t block users from visiting inappropriate websites.
Intercept X Essentials also does not offer Application Control, so you can’t control what types of applications can be run, and you don’t have access to Threat Cases, File Integrity Monitoring, and Server Lockdown.
So what does it have?
This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it has Web Security, Deep Learning Malware Detection, Anti-Malware File Scanning, HIPS, Live Protection, Malicious Traffic Detection, and Exploit Prevention. There’s also Automated Malware Removal, Safe Browsing, Ransomware File Protection, Enhanced Application Lockdown, and more. And it is managed from Sophos Central, of course. And you can upgrade to Intercept X Advanced, Advanced with XDR, or Advanced with MTR at any time.
Sophos Intercept X Essentials is perfect endpoint security for small businesses that require only one policy. It is an excellent replacement for Sophos Central Endpoint Protection.
With the introduction of Essentials, Intercept X is not just for organizations with hundreds or thousands of endpoints, to protect anymore. It’s a potent, affordable protection product for any size business. And it has the same clean, recognizable, easy-to-navigate Sophos Central cloud interface.
Of course, Corporate Armor can answer any further questions you may have about any Sophos product, so please email us or call 877-449-0458 any time!
Sophos Intercept X Essentials features
| Deep Learning Malware Detection |
| Automated Malware Removal |
| Disk and Boot Record Protection |
| Web Security |