We are excited to open the Early Access Program (EAP) of XG Firewall v18 to all Sophos customers and partners. This release offers a ton of great new features and innovations:

• Xstream Architecture delivers extreme new levels of visibility, protection and performance.
• Threat Intelligence Analysis stops zero-day threats before they get on your network.
• Top requested features and innovative enhancements make XG Firewall easier to deploy and manage.

Xstream Architecture

One of the highlights of v18 is the new Xstream packet processing architecture. It provides superior high-speed security from the latest threats; uncompromising visibility into encrypted traffic flows; and accelerated performance for your most important traffic.

The new architecture has three major components:

1. Xstream DPI Engine – Deep packet threat protection for AV, IPS, Web, App Control and SSL Inspection in a single proxy-less streaming engine.
2. Xstream SSL Inspection – Industry-leading performance, flexibility, and transparency into all SSL/TLS-encrypted traffic, including support for TLS 1.3 across all ports and applications.
3. Xstream Network Flow FastPath – Automatic and policy-based intelligent offloading of trusted traffic processing at wire speed to ensure your trusted mission-critical traffic is always on the fast path.

One of the new features in v18 is the new Xstream SSL Inspection widget on the Control Center for at-a-glance insights into your encrypted network traffic.

Threat Intelligence Analysis

Threat Intelligence Analysis is powered by SophosLabs and our leading deep-learning technology. Using a range of threat modelling techniques to analyze files being downloaded or arriving via email, this feature identifies and stops the latest zero-day threats before they get on the network.

To see the types of files entering the network you can get a quick overview in the form of a visual Threatometer (as shown below) and the full details in a comprehensive report.

Your top requested features

You asked and we listened – XG Firewall v18 also includes your top requested features as well as other innovative enhancements related to SD-WAN, NAT, networking, firewall rule management, notifications and alerts, and much more. Take a look at the full list of features for complete details.

Help shape it

To take part in the program, head over to our Community Forums to get the latest firmware, meet your fellow EAP participants and Sophos staff, and share your feedback.