Description
Sophos Intercept X and the 10 questions you need to answer
The Sophos XGS series is now simply, Sophos Firewall. They have new, powerful Xstream Flow processors, including the XGS 87 and XGS 87W. These multi-core processors just make everything faster. Including the heavy-lift security functions like…
TLS 1.3 Inspection
According to the latest statistics, approximately 90% of web traffic is encrypted. Problem is, encryption makes traffic invisible to most firewalls. As a result, many organizations simply don’t use the SSL Inspection features on their firewalls. The concern is that SSL Inspection will impact performance, and thus user experience. Predictably, an increasing amount of malware is taking advantage of this fact.
The Sophos XGS 87 firewall now removes the blind spots caused by encrypted traffic. The speedy new processors allow you to use SSL Inspection without sacrificing speed and efficiency.
Deep Packet Inspection
Sophos believes you shouldn’t have to choose between security and performance. So, Sophos Firewall includes a fast Deep Packet Inspection engine. It scans your traffic without using a proxy, which tends to slow things down. The inspection processing is completely offloaded to the DPI engine. This reduces latency. In other words, it speeds things up.
Application Acceleration
Of course, let’s not forget that a lot of your network traffic is important application traffic. Traffic that’s supposed to be there, going to branch offices, remote users, and so on. This trusted traffic can now be directed to FastPath, which will optimize performance further. This provides extra capacity for intelligently scanning traffic that does need DPI for malware and other threats.
Sophos XGS 87 and XGS 87W firewall specs
The XG 87W is a desktop appliance, but there will be a rack mount unit available. The XGS 87W pushes 3.7 Gbps total firewall Throughput, and 2.5 Gbps Firewall IMIX. IPS Throughput is 1.015 Gbps, Threat Protection Throughput is 240 Mbps, and Xstream SSL/TLS Inspection is 375 Mbps. The wireless interface is 802.11ac.
You can expect the XGS series to truly be carefree “install and forget” firewalls. As long as you maintain firmware upgrades, the standard installation does an excellent job.
From setting up business rules to access points to Remote Ethernet Devices, Sophos always offers an ease-of-use that is tough to beat. This appliance is very suitable for small-to medium-sized businesses and remote branch offices. Any firewall designed for this kind of use case has to be easy to fire up, figure out, and forget about.
After all, it’s for organizations that may not have tons of resources to throw at IT staff and security, but that nevertheless deserve first-rate protection.
If you have any questions about the Sophos XGS 87 firewall, please reach out to us here. Or, call Corporate Armor at 877-449-0458.
Sophos XGS highlights
- New, dedicated Xstream Flow processors
- Superior TLS Inspection
- Extremely fast Deep Packet Inspection
- Efficient Application Acceleration