Sophos Debuts Cloud Optix To Aid Public Cloud Visibility, Compliance

Sophos unveiled a new tool that provides visibility, automatic compliance regulation detection and threat response across multiple public cloud environments.

The Oxford, U.K.-based platform security vendor said Sophos Cloud Optix will leverage artificial intelligence to highlight and mitigate threat exposure in cloud infrastructures. The product builds upon the AI capabilities Sophos acquired from San Francisco-based startup Avid Secure in January.

"This is a relatively young market," said Richard Beckett, senior product marketing manager for Sophos. "And we're gaining traction."

[Related: Sophos Buys Startup Avid Secure To Bolster Public Cloud Protection]

Sophos Cloud Optix adds supports for Google Cloud to Avid Secure's existing capabilities around Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure. Beckett said this will enable Sophos partners and customers to take advantage of the noise Google Cloud is creating in the marketplace as the company's office productivity suite gains more traction.

A single Sophos Cloud Optix license provides support around development platforms, test QA platforms, and production platforms for up to 100 cloud assets, which can include virtual machines or Amazon S3 storage buckets, Beckett said. Customers with large environments beyond 100 cloud assets can obtain multiple licenses, according to Beckett.

Although the live production platform gets a lot of the focus, Beckett said companies that operate in a test environment and use customer accounts within that environment need to address the weakness and organizational risk that poses. For this reason, he recommends that the license be used to cover assets from a single cloud provider across all three environments.

Sophos Cloud Optix licenses are available for a one-month or 12-month term, Beckett said, and allow users to run an unlimited number of compliance checks on the platform. The company was unable to provide specific pricing information for the product.

The sweet spot for Sophos Cloud Optix is businesses with roughly 100 cloud assets, although Beckett said the product has also caught the eye of midmarket and enterprise customers. The product also appeals to companies in highly regulated industries such as health care or online retail where large amounts of customer data are being processed, according to Beckett.

"Compliance within the cloud can really tie up a development team," he said.

Manually preparing for an audit is incredibly difficult and time-consuming, Beckett said, and can take weeks or even months. But Sophos Cloud Optix quickly conforms a business to be in alignment with compliance criteria, freeing a company's development team to focus on projects rather than preparing for compliance or audit checks, he added.

Any business moving to the cloud needs visibility around their workloads, Beckett said, and Sophos Cloud Optix allows customers to better see what needs to be secured and ensure that no backdoors are being left open.

Sophos Cloud Optix will make it easier for SecurView's technology, manufacturing or utility customers to maximize their investments and protect their data in the cloud, according to Rajeev Khanolkar, president and CEO of the Edison, N.J.-based Sophos partner. Specifically, Khanolkar said Sophos Cloud Optix will make it possible to solve some of the toughest challenges in cloud security.

"The ability to offer Sophos Cloud Optix is important to us because it allows us to provide continuous compliance coupled with intelligent cloud visibility and immediate threat response," Khanolkar said.