Sophos

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sophos

Type	Private
Founded	1985
Headquarters	Abingdon, Oxfordshire, UK Burlington, Massachusetts, USA
Key people	Steve Munford, CEO
Industry	computer security
Products	Sophos Anti-Virus Sophos PureMessage Sophos Client Firewall Sophos ES4000 Sophos Anti-Rootkit Sophos WS1000 Sophos SMB Security Suite Endforce
Website	www.sophos.com

Sophos is a company that makes security software such as anti-virus, anti-spyware, anti-spam and Network Access Control for desktops, e-mail servers, and other network gateways.

SophosLabs is the company's global network of threat analysis centers.

1 Company profile
2 Products
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Company profile

Founded in 1985 by Dr. Peter Lammer and Dr. Jan Hruska, Sophos is a privately owned company and is co-headquarted in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA and Oxford, UK. The company has subsidiaries and branch offices in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore and Spain, as well as approximately 1,000 employees worldwide.

Unlike other security companies, Sophos does not produce anti-virus and anti-spam solutions for home users, but instead has always focused on the business market.

In 2006, Steve Munford was named CEO of Sophos, and Hruska and Lammer announced they would remain as co-founders and members of the board of directors. Munford was the president of ActiveState prior to its acquisition by Sophos in 2003, and from 2003 to 2005 was president of Sophos for North America. In 2005 he became chief operating officer, responsible for the day-to-day running of the company and its senior management team. Munford holds a Bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Western Ontario, and an MBA from Queen's University, Ontario.

In 2007, Sophos acquired ENDFORCE, a company based in Ohio USA which makes security policy compliance and Network Access Control (NAC) software.

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.

Sophos' anti-virus engine and definitions are now packaged in to Webroots' Spy Sweeper with Anti-Virus.