Cybersecurity guidance during the coronavirus pandemic

The coronavirus and resulting changes to work practices have a number of cybersecurity repercussions. This article brings together all of our advice to support people through this challenging time, including best practices for secure remote working as well as information on cyberthreats that exploit COVID-19.

We will continue to update this page as new resources and research findings become available.

Non-stop Sophos protection during the coronavirus pandemic

We’d like to reassure our customers and partners that our ability to protect them is uncompromised. All departments, including threat intelligence, protection and response from SophosLabs, Managed Threat Response and Global Support Services are operating as normal to provide 24×7 detection, protection and technical support. Read our full statement.

FREE personal PC and Mac protection for all Sophos customers

For the duration of the COVID-19 global health concern, all Sophos customers can protect their employees’ personal PCs and Macs for free with our Sophos Home Commercial Edition program.

It gives your staff the same business-grade protection that our commercial customers already enjoy, providing added security and peace of mind when working remotely. For more information and to request your free access, please reach out to your Sophos representative.

FREE virtual XG Firewall for 90 days

Anyone who needs to set up IPsec or SSL VPN connections for secure remote access can now use the XG Firewall free trial for 90 days.  Deploy using your preferred virtual environment, including VMware, Citrix, Microsoft Hyper-V, and KVM.

Best practices for secure remote working

1. Coronavirus and remote working: what you need to know

This article explores the behaviors and technologies you need to keep your organization protected from cyberthreats while enabling people to work remotely.  This guidance is applicable to all organizations.

2. Facilitating remote working with Sophos XG Firewall

Sophos XG Firewall and SD-RED devices provide multiple solutions for secure remote connectivity. This article looks at the specific features in XG Firewall that support remote working and provides information on configuring IPsec and SSL VPN connections.

3. Securing remote working with Sophos Endpoint Protection

Sophos Endpoint Protection is designed to secure everyone, whether they’re office-based or working elsewhere. In this article we explore how to set up remote workers, including how to create web filtering and peripheral control policies.

4. Securing remote working with Sophos Mobile
This article explains you can keep mobile devices – and the data on them – secure with Sophos Mobile. It also explores how to balance privacy, security and productivity on mobile devices.

Coronavirus threat research from Sophos

Extortion email threatens to give your family coronavirus

The Sophos Security team have investigated a new phishing email that threatens to infect your family with coronavirus unless you pay $4,000.

Coronavirus warning spreads Trickbot malware

Our SophosLabs researchers recently discovered a spam campaign targeting Italy that ultimately results in infection by a well-known strain of Windows malware called Trickbot. We anticipate that attackers will try to use similar approaches in other countries.

Coronavirus “safety measures” email is a phishing scam

The Sophos security team detected a phishing attack purporting to be from the World Health Organization.