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BOSTON, MA – January 17, 2011 – Global IT security and data protection company Sophos announced today that it has been positioned by Gartner, Inc. as a Leader in the 2010 Endpoint Protection Platforms Magic Quadrant*. The report analyzes the endpoint protection platforms market, evaluating vendors' business and technology vision, and their ability to execute against that vision in their products and services. This means Sophos has now been recognized by Gartner in 2010 as a leader for both Endpoint Protection and Data Protection.

Gartner suggests the endpoint environment has been a challenging one in 2010: "The threat environment continues to outpace improvements in malware detection effectiveness. High-profile attacks, such as Aurora and Stuxnet in 2010, illustrate the growing sophistication of malware attacks... Gartner clients are increasingly frustrated with having to clean PCs from well-known consumer infections like 'Fake AV' and are concerned about the potential impact of more stealthy, undetected, targeted attacks." The report continues to say, "Some effective HIPS techniques are making their way into the core anti-malware engines, and these solutions provide significant additional value in detecting new threats."

Sophos introduced Live Protection as part of its Endpoint and Data Protection 9.5 in June 2010 to accelerate protection against web-based threats, like Fake AV. It enables users to gain access to the very latest threat data instantly by connecting directly to Sophos' extensive cloud-based database. Part of its Live Protection technology, Sophos Live URL Filtering stops users from visiting infected websites. Everyday Sophos identifies as many as 40,000 new websites hosting malware; many of them are legitimate websites that have been compromised by hackers.

Sophos plans to build on this success, and its 'Advanced+' rating in recent AV Comparatives tests, by extending further protection of virtualized environments, mobile devices web threat and application vulnerabilities during the coming year. And by continuing with the focus on providing advanced protection options, while continuing to reduce the impact on already stretched IT teams.

"We believe Gartner's recognition of Sophos further underscores the company's security philosophy," said Rainer Gawlick, Chief Marketing Officer, Sophos. "It's a tough battle to find the right combination of technologies to keep customers protected, while letting their businesses run productively. Our focus is to make technologies like HIPS consumable for administrators, so they get the benefit without the complexity of implementation. Our data shows over 60 percent of Sophos customers use HIPS, which is recognized as far in excess of average take up rates, and as Gartner says, it is increasingly important that businesses deploy these technologies to get the added protection they deliver."

Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Endpoint Protection Platforms is based on a company's ability to execute and completeness of vision. According to Gartner, "Leaders demonstrate balanced progress and effort in all execution and vision categories. Their capabilities in advanced malware protection, data protection and/or management features raise the competitive bar for all products in the market, and they can change the course of the industry. A leading vendor isn't a default choice for every buyer, and clients should not assume that they must buy only from vendors in the Leaders quadrant. Some clients believe that Leaders are spreading their efforts too thinly and aren't pursuing clients' special needs."

This recent award follows Sophos also being placed in the Leaders Quadrant in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Mobile Data Protection (MDP) 2010.