Sophos. Cybersecurity evolved: Increasing IT efficiency and protection

Imagine cutting the time you spend on day-to-day security admin by over 90% and slashing the number of security incidents that need investigation by 85%. Almost sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it?

Almost. Because these are the real-world benefits that organizations are seeing from running a Sophos cybersecurity system, revealed in the Sophos Business Impact report.

With Sophos Intercept X protection on endpoints, Sophos XG Firewall at the gateway, and everything managed through Sophos Central, Sophos customers are seeing quantifiable improvements in both protection and IT efficiency.

Customer Impact

We interviewed five customers across North America, Europe, and Asia to understand the impact the Sophos cybersecurity system has had for them.

Each customer’s scenario was different, with varying organizational structures, challenges, and business requirements. However, one major finding was common to all:

Customers said that they would need to double their security headcount to maintain the same level of protection if they didn’t have a Sophos next-gen cybersecurity system.

They also told us that they experience fewer security incidents and can identify and respond quicker to issues that do occur.

Customer A: Healthcare Provider, USA

Customer A is a regional healthcare provider whose services include inpatient and outpatient care, medical practices, nursing homes, and a range of specialist services. They have 4,500 employees, including 80 IT staff, of which three are dedicated to cybersecurity. Benefits they have seen from running Sophos include:

  • 50% reduction in IT security resource requirements
    The customer currently employs three dedicated cybersecurity heads. They calculated they would need to employ three additional full-time security analysts solely to cover incident response if they didn’t use Sophos.
  • 90%+ reduction in day-to-day security administration
    The IT security manager spends 30 minutes each day reviewing logs and investigating anything of concern. Prior to Sophos, it used to take him an entire day to get the same level of information and confidence.
  • 85% reduction in security incidents
    Prior to Sophos, they experienced on average three incidents each day that were worthy of further investigation. With Sophos this has dropped to an average of one every three days.
  • 90%+ reduction in time to investigate an incident
    Before Sophos it used to take around three hours to conduct a thorough investigation into an incident, which included getting local access to the affected computer. Now it takes a maximum of 15 minutes with everything done remotely via the Sophos Central platform.

Customer B: Education Services Provider, India

Customer B provides educational services to colleges and universities across India and the wider Southeast Asia area. They secure tens of thousands of students via a centralized IT team based out of their head office in Bangalore, together with a team of local IT managers on site.  The impact of running a Sophos cybersecurity system includes:

  • 50% reduction in staff needed for day-to-day security management
    Previously, they employed four engineers to manage day-to-day security. Since moving to Sophos, they have only needed two engineers to cover security across the company.
  • 94% reduction in time to identify high-risk areas that require investigation
    Prior to Sophos it took the customer three to four hours to identify critical issues they needed to focus on for further investigation. Now it takes just 10 to 15 minutes to identify the security priorities across the organization in Sophos Central.
  • 98% reduction in time to identify the source of bad traffic on the network.
    With the previous network security implementation it would take two days (and sometimes longer) to identify which device on the network was causing performance or security issues. Now it takes just 15 minutes to pinpoint the issue and start addressing it.
  • 95% reduction in time spent managing firmware updates
    Before Sophos each firmware update would take between three and four hours. Now it takes just 10 minutes per update. With 20 to 25 updates a year, this equates to a savings of 75 hours a year.

To learn more and to check out all five case studies, read Cybersecurity Evolved: The Sophos Business Impact.

If you’d like to try out Sophos solutions for yourself you can start an instant online demo at www.sophos.com/demo.