Third Endpoint Security Update

Since the last email update in July, and following the briefing sessions in August (PDF slides), we wanted to provide a 3rd update on the Endpoint Security Provision project.

The old Sophos agreement ended on 11/09/2018, and we are utilising the new 3 year agreement with a focus on the delivery of next-generation endpoint and server protection using Sophos InterceptX managed by Sophos Central. Certain additional products (e.g. Sophos’ web and email appliances) are no longer licensed and have stopped receiving updates. The project team is working with all affected units on alternatives. If this affects you, and you are not in discussions with the team, please contact endpointsecurity@infosec.ox.ac.uk

The project team has nearly completed the first stage of migration, with all but two existing Sophos Central users successfully migrated ahead of schedule. We are working with Sophos to complete this work for the remaining two.

The second stage is the provisioning of new Sophos Central instances for the rest of the collegiate-University. We have already contacted colleagues within Humanities, Social Sciences, and MPLS asking for details to take this forward. We will continue with the roll out and everyone should expect to receive their invitation before the end of October.

We currently have 70 Sophos Central instances with 5,004 clients and 608 servers reporting to it. The adoption of InterceptX across the clients is already 58% (2,918 clients). The University has made a substantial investment in the new agreement with Sophos so we would urge you to take advantage of InterceptX for clients and servers as soon as you can.

As part of the new agreement we have agreed with Sophos that the University will migrate to Sophos Central by 31/01/2019. Clients not reporting to one of the new Sophos Central instances will stop receiving updates shortly after this date.

We will be offering two more information sessions on Tuesday, 16/10/2018, 12:00-13:30, Weston Library lecture theatre, and Wednesday, 31/10/2018, 11:00-12:30, John Radcliffe Hospital lecture theatre 1 (in the academic block of level 2). We would strongly recommend that all departments and colleges have a representative attend one of these sessions. Please use the ITSS workshop booking system to book your space well in advance.

If you have any queries please direct them to James Smith (Project Sponsor), Marko Jung (Senior Supplier), Percy Reason (Project Manager), or another member of the project board. Or you email the project team at endpointsecurity@infosec.ox.ac.uk.