Protecting Sophos Central Admins With Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)

Products•Sophos Central
Aug 10 2021 By

Starting in September, we will be requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA) for all Sophos Central administrators. ​

No action is necessary at this time. Beginning in early September, any Sophos Central administrators who aren’t already using MFA will simply be redirected to the MFA setup process automatically the next time they log in.​

MFA has been enabled by default (with an opt-out feature) for new Sophos Central accounts since October of 2019. This initiative is simply meant to provide all administrators with an additional layer of protection.

If you’re not familiar with MFA, it provides additional and valuable login security so that if username and password credentials are stolen, authentication isn’t possible without an additional factor.​ You can read more about the benefits of MFA here.

As a second authentication factor, we recommend using the Google Authenticator app, which is available for free in the App Store and Google Play. Administrators can also opt to receive text messages or email messages instead.​

Sophos Central Super Admins who wish to enable MFA for their teams before September are encouraged to do so. Simply log into Sophos Central, navigate to Global Settings, and choose “Multi-factor Authentication (MFA)” under the “General” heading. ​

Sophos Central > Global Settings > General > Multi-factor Authentication (MFA)​

From there, MFA can be enabled for all admins. Detailed instructions can be found here.

About the Author

Sophos is a global leader and innovator of advanced security solutions for defeating cyberattacks, including Managed Detection and Response (MDR) and incident response services and a broad portfolio of endpoint, network, email, and cloud security technologies. As one of the largest pure-play cybersecurity providers, Sophos defends more than 600,000 organizations and more than 100 million users worldwide from active adversaries, ransomware, phishing, malware, and more. Sophos’ services and products connect through the Sophos Central management console and are powered by Sophos X-Ops, the company’s cross-domain threat intelligence unit. Sophos X-Ops intelligence optimizes the entire Sophos Adaptive Cybersecurity Ecosystem, which includes a centralized data lake that leverages a rich set of open APIs available to customers, partners, developers, and other cybersecurity and information technology vendors. Sophos provides cybersecurity-as-a-service to organizations needing fully managed security solutions. Customers can also manage their cybersecurity directly with Sophos’ security operations platform or use a hybrid approach by supplementing their in-house teams with Sophos’ services, including threat hunting and remediation. Sophos sells through reseller partners and managed service providers (MSPs) worldwide. Sophos is headquartered in Oxford, U.K. More information is available at www.sophos.com.