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Sophos, a global leader in next-generation cybersecurity, today unveiled an updated version of its Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR), the first solution designed for both security analysts and IT administrators, available now in Sophos Intercept X Advancedand Intercept X Advanced for Server with EDR. Significant advancements and new capabilities make it faster and easier than ever before for security analysts to identify and neutralize evasive threats, and for IT administrators to proactively maintain secure IT operations to reduce risk.

Sophos also published new research, “An Insider View into the Increasingly Complex Kingminer Botnet,”underscoring the use of servers in carrying out attacks and the importance of threat intelligence in detecting such activity. The opportunistic Kingminer botnet attempts to gain server access by brute-forcing login credentials, and Sophos now finds that it’s using the infamous EternalBlue exploit in an attempt to spread malware among other attack mechanisms.The new version of Sophos EDRoffers a custom-built query engineto detect indicators of compromise.

Kingminer shares many of the attributes that advanced ransomware attackers use to gain access, evidence of the need for EDR with the ability to hunt active attacks. As Sophosrecently discovered in itsState of Ransomware 2020 survey, only 24% of organizations breached in a ransomware incident were able to detect the intrusion and stop it before it was able to encrypt their files. Sophos’ new EDR capabilities help security and IT teams detect threats and breaches that could otherwise take months to uncover.

“Cybercriminals are raising the stakes, stopping at nothing to capitalize on expanded attack surfaces as organizations increasingly move to the cloud and enable remote workforces. Servers and other endpoints are all too insufficiently protected, creating vulnerable entry points that are ripe for attackers to exploit,” said Dan Schiappa, chief product officer, Sophos. “Sophos EDR helps identifythese attacks, preventing breaches and shining light on otherwise dark areas. Live querying capabilities only available with Sophos EDR in Intercept X enable organizations to search for past indicators of compromise and determine the current system state. This level of intelligence is critical in understanding changing attacker behaviors and reducing attacker dwell time.”

Sophos EDR now providespowerful visibility across an organization’s entire estate,enabling security and IT practitioners to quickly answer critical threat hunting and IT security operations questions, and easily respond. New features include:
• Live Discover: Pinpoint past and present activity with up to 90 days of data retention. Out-of-the-box ready SQL queries allow administrators to answer threat hunting andIT questions, and can be selected from a library of pre-written options and fully customizedby users. This flexible query engine provides access to some of the most granular and detailed endpoint activity recordings that are further enhanced with Sophos’ deep learning technology

• Live Response: Remotely respond and access endpoints and servers using a command line interface to perform further investigation and remediate issues; easily reboot devices, install and uninstall software, terminate active processes, run scripts, edit configuration files, run forensic tools, isolate machines, and more
Sophos EDR is powered by Sophos’ deep learning neural network, which is trained on hundreds of millions of samples to look for threat indicators. Security analysts and IT administrators also gain on-demand access to curated threat intelligence from SophosLabs, which tracks, deconstructs and analyzes more than 400,000 malware samplesevery day.

Available now inSophos Intercept X Advanced with EDR and Intercept X Advanced for Server with EDRat no added cost, Sophos EDR will support Windows, MacOS and Linux. Its new Live Discover and Live Response features are easily managed in the threat analysis centeron the cloud-based Sophos Central platform for real-time information sharing with Sophos’ entire portfolio of next-generation cybersecurity solutions via its unique Synchronized Security approach.Combined with Sophos Managed Threat Response(MTR), a fully-managed threat hunting, detection and response service, organizations can boost capabilities with human analysis for a further evolved approach to proactive security protection.

Additional Resources
• See the findings of Sophos’ recent global survey, The State of Ransomware 2020
• Learn about the threat landscape and trends in 2020 in the SophosLabs Threat Report
• Read the latest security and company news on Naked Security and on Sophos News
• Connect with Sophos on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Spiceworks, and YouTube