IT security company Sophos unveiled its XGS Series firewall appliances, a “new product that protects your network from the latest threats and against cyberattacks.”

The new appliances feature Transport Layer Security (TLS) inspection, including native support for TLS 1.3, which, according to the company, is “five times faster than other models available on the market today.”

Dan Schiappa, Sophos chief product officer, said the product “represents the most significant hardware that we have ever released, and introduces unmatched detection, protection, and speed.”

According to Schiappa, security teams must not “overlook encrypted traffic for fear of breaking something or hurting performance—there’s too much at risk.”

That’s why, Schiappa said, “we’ve completely redesigned the Sophos Firewall hardware to handle the modern encrypted internet.”

The feature allows security teams to “easily inspect encrypted traffic and shine light on what was once a black hole,” Schiappa explained, “and they can confidently do so without compromising on performance.”

Cybercriminals Increasingly Using TLS to Avoid Detection

Sophos published, Nearly Half of Malware Now Use TLS to Conceal Communications, a new research identifying a surge in cybercriminals using TLS in their attacks.

The report claimed that an “increasingly popular tactic is used by adversaries to encrypt and encapsulate the content of malicious communications to avoid detection as they carry out attacks.”

In fact, 45% of malware detected by Sophos from January to March this year used TLS to conceal malicious communications.

The report said this was a staggering rise from the 23% detected reported in early 2020.

Sophos has also seen an increase in the use of TLS to carry out ransomware attacks in the past year, particularly with manually deployed ransomware. The majority of malicious TLS traffic that Sophos has detected “includes initial-compromise malware, such as loaders, droppers, and document-based installers like BazarLoader, GoDrop, and ZLoader.”

Schiappa commented that “TLS has changed the privacy of internet communications for the better, but it made it much easier for attackers to download and install malicious modules and exfiltrate stolen data—right under the noses of IT security teams and most security technologies.”

“The TLS-protected web and cloud services are being used for malware delivery and for command and control”, Schiappa added. “Their initial compromise malware is simply the advance guard for major attacks, as they’re setting up camp for the heavy artillery that follows, like ransomware.”

Accelerating Threat Protection

Powered by Sophos Firewall’s Xstream architecture, XGS Series appliances deliver the “best zero-day threat protection—identifying and stopping potential threats—including ransomware.

Sophos said “the protection is fuelled by powerful threat intelligence, which is available through SophosLabs Intelix and based on petabytes of SophosLabs threat data.”

Then, the suspicious files are safely disposed in SophosLabs Intelix virtual environments, as well as subjected to in-depth static analysis for additional detection coverage and intelligence gathering.

New Xstream flow processors within the appliances automatically accelerate trusted traffic such as software as a service (SaaS) and software-defined wide-area network (SD-WAN) and cloud applications, providing maximum headroom for traffic requiring TLS and deep packet inspection.

This greatly reduces latency and improves overall performance for important business applications, particularly those using real-time data. The Xstream flow processors are software programmable, allowing Sophos to offload additional traffic in the future.

The flexibility to enhance and adapt connectivity on the hardware itself further protects customers’ hardware investment.

Sophos provides "unique and intuitive dashboard visibility of TLS traffic and inspection issues, and security administrators can add exceptions for problematic streams with one click.”

Performance is also optimised out of the box with an extensive set of rules that are updated and maintained by SophosLabs to exclude safe traffic from inspection.

Sophos Firewall XGS Series appliances and firmware are “easily managed on the cloud-based Sophos Central platform alongside Sophos’ entire portfolio of next-generation cybersecurity solutions.”

The mentioned solutions share “threat intelligence and automatically respond to security incidents through Sophos’ unique synchronised security approach.”

Integration with Sophos Managed Threat Response (MTR) further “boosts protection with human analysis for 24/7 fully managed threat detection and response", Sophos said.

Availability

Sophos Firewall XGS Series desktop and most 1U rackmount appliances are available exclusively through Sophos’ global channel of partners and managed service providers (MSPs). These models are ideally suited for small, medium, and distributed organisations as an all-in-one network security solution “with a strong price to performance ratio and diverse add-on connectivity options.” Additional models designed for enterprise edge environments requiring maximum throughput for more complex network configurations will be available in the coming weeks. Simplified licensing includes bundled protection with enhanced support.

What Analysts and Channel Partners Say

Frank Dickson, program vice president at IDC, said: “Firewall appliances are evolving to secure newer use cases, including cloud and the sudden shift to a growing remote workforce.”

He touched on “Sophos Firewall’s Xstream dual processor architecture approach.”

“It accelerates trusted traffic from so-called ‘elephant flows’—large media streams, VoIP traffic and even cloud applications—to then leverage the general-purpose CPU to perform appropriate resource-intensive processes, such as deep packet inspection and TLS inspection”, Dickson said.

He said “the result is an adaptable network appliance designed to provide protection while meeting changing and accelerating business demands across a variety of use cases.”

Sam Heard, president at Data Integrity services, vouched for the appliances’ credibility.

“The new XGS Series firewall appliances are screaming fast with rock solid, unbreakable stability. We captured an immediate increase in performance that doubled our throughput, which completely blew us away”, he commented.

He described Sophos Firewall “has always been the industry best, but the XGS Series appliances are revolutionary and beyond compare with cutting-edge innovation.”

He said the firewall provides protection to their customers “as they increasingly move business critical applications to the cloud and adopt zero trust technologies.”

“It’s a win-win for channel partners, who further benefit with tremendous growth opportunities to cross and up-sell across the entire suite of Sophos solutions and services”, he explained.

Karen Greer, CEO at Secure Content Technologies, said: “Sophos is raising the bar and pushing the cybersecurity industry forward at warp speed with its new XGS Series appliances.”

“Appliance installation is simple, and within minutes I could hear our technician yelling through the wall, ‘wow, this is fast!’”, Greer claimed.

“Sophos Firewall is managed on Sophos Central, making it easier to secure and manage complex customer environments. Knowing that Sophos Firewall automatically shares threat intelligence with other solutions on the platform through Sophos’ synchronized security heartbeat feature is game changing, giving us confidence and peace of mind that our customers are protected – even the most evasive threats don’t stand a chance at getting by”, Greer concluded.