Sophos Endpoint Security for Macintosh

In an effort to ensure the security of Macintosh based computers on campus, Learning and Technology Services has purchased a three-year subscription to Sophos Endpoint Security for the roughly 500 Macintosh computers on campus.

Although very few viral threats exist for the current Macintosh OS X operating systems, it is still possible for Macs to pass along Windows-based viruses.

The Sophos software will allow us to not only protect the Macs in the event that something does come along, but also to better protect the network as a whole, as the client also includes behavioral monitoring. Over the past few years, no anti-virus software was being deployed to Macintosh computers on campus, as the options that were available were intrusive, slow, and lacked centralized management. Sophos handles these issues much better. The Sophos client was installed to all lab and classroom Macintosh computers prior to the start of spring semester.

Over the course of the month of February, faculty and staff that have a campus-owned Macintosh will have the ability to install the Sophos Anti-Virus client on their own through the self service application available from our Mac management software. Administrative privileges are not required to install applications or updates made available through self service. If you have questions about installing the software using self service please contact the Help Desk (36-5711). At the end of February, Sophos Anti-Virus will be installed on all Macintosh computers that haven’t installed it via self service.

Along with this three-year agreement for Sophos, LTS will be able to offer a copy of the client to faculty and staff for home use on their Macintosh. This deployment has yet to be planned, but should be running sometime during this spring semester as well.

Any questions regarding the purchase of or use of Sophos for the Mac, can be directed to Craig Ernst in Systems Management & Configuration (ernstcs).