Security News
Sophos CTO Joe Levy On Surging MDR Demand And Endpoint Security Updates
Kyle Alspach
Managed detection and response (MDR) ‘continues to be the fastest-growing offering in the history of Sophos as a company,’ Levy tells CRN.
Services Revolution
Since transitioning its managed threat response offering to a managed detection and response (MDR) service at the end of November, Sophos has seen strong demand that’s not expected to be slowing down anytime soon, Sophos CTO Joe Levy told CRN. The cybersecurity giant disclosed a suite of new endpoint security capabilities that will help feed into the MDR service — as well as the underlying extended detection and response (XDR) platform that helps to power the MDR. The updates include new account health check capabilities and “adaptive active adversary protection,” which offers the ability to disrupt attacks that are in progress and “buy more time for responders,” Levy said.
[Related: Sophos CEO Hagerman: New MDR Offering Will Usher In An Era Of ‘Cybersecurity As A Service’]
In just the three months since the MDR launch, Sophos has already added 2,500 new customers for the offering, now reaching 15,000 MDR customers in total. “This continues to be the fastest-growing offering in the history of Sophos as a company,” Levy said in an interview. The surge in demand for MDR — coming amid a massive global shortage of cybersecurity talent — is also helping to prove the company’s thesis that services are the future of security, he said. Ultimately, “I believe that services are going to become the primary consumption model of cybersecurity in the industry over time,” Levy said.
Levy also discussed the new endpoint security updates that aim to help with security automation, including around fixing insecure configurations.
What follows is an edited portion of CRN’s interview with Levy.
