15 Facts About Sophos

Sophos Group plc is a British based security software and hardware company.

Sophos develops products for communication endpoint, encryption, network security, email security, mobile security and unified threat management.

Sophos is primarily focused on providing security software to 1- to 5,000-seat organizations.

Sophos was founded by Jan Hruska and Peter Lammer and began producing its first antivirus and encryption products in 1985.

In 2003, Sophos acquired ActiveState, a North American software company that developed anti-spam software.

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At that time viruses were being spread primarily through email spam and this allowed Sophos to produce a combined anti-spam and antivirus solution.

In 2011, Utimaco Safeware AG were accused of supplying data monitoring and tracking software to partners that have sold to governments such as Syria: Sophos issued a statement of apology and confirmed that they had suspended their relationship with the partners in question and launched an investigation.

In February 2014, Sophos announced that it had acquired Cyberoam Technologies, a provider of network security products.

On 14 October 2019 Sophos announced that Thoma Bravo, a US-based private equity firm, made an offer to acquire Sophos for US$7.

The board of directors of Sophos stated their intention to unanimously recommend the offer to the company's shareholders.

From September 2003 to February 2006, Sophos served as the parent company of ActiveState, a developer of programming tools for dynamic programming languages: in February 2006, ActiveState became an independent company when it was sold to Vancouver-based venture capitalist firm Pender Financial.

In 2007, Sophos acquired ENDFORCE, a company based in Ohio, United States, which developed and sold security policy compliance and Network Access Control software.

In May 2011, Sophos announced the acquisition of Astaro, a privately held provider of network security solutions, headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts, USA and Karlsruhe, Germany.

In November 2016, Sophos acquired Barricade, a pioneering start-up with a powerful behavior-based analytics engine built on machine learning techniques, to strengthen synchronized security capabilities and next-generation network and endpoint protection.

In February 2017, Sophos acquired Invincea, a software company that provides malware threat detection, prevention, and pre-breach forensic intelligence.