Migrating Firewall Authentication from the Sophos Network Agent Mobile App

Products

If you have one of the few customers using the Sophos Network Agent iOS or Android app for firewall web surfing authentication, this article is for you. If this little know mobile app is news to you, then you don’t need to take any action.

About the Sophos Network Agent

The Sophos Network Agent app allows a user on the local network to authenticate their Android or iOS device to Sophos Firewall for web browsing. Once the connection is established and the user is recognized, the user policy set by the administrator is applied to their mobile device browsing. This app is used by very few Sophos Firewall customers as most use the captive portal for authentication (as outlined below).

What’s Changing:

Effective immediately Sophos will no longer provide updates to the existing Sophos Network Agents available in the Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Both versions of the Sophos Network Agent may continue to work on existing versions of Android and iOS. However, in the future, the Sophos Network Agents may not be available in the app stores or stop working on future versions of Android and iOS.

  • For devices running Android, this is any version of Android with an API level greater than 31, the Sophos Network Agent will not be available for download on those devices.
  • For devices running iOS the last version of the Sophos Network Agent published to the app store will be version 1.4.

The Sophos Network Agent for Android and iOS will go End-of-Life (EOL) on September 1, 2023. For more information on the Sophos product lifecycle.

Recommended Alternative:

We recommend switching to the Captive Portal for any Android or iOS devices that are required to authenticate with your Sophos Firewall. This will ensure users on those devices are correctly authenticated and identified and ensure that the correct web and firewall policies are enforced.

Migrating to the Captive Portal on SFOS will not require the mobile device to have an app installed and works with the native browsers available on devices running the latest versions of Android and iOS.

For assistance in setting up the Captive Portal, the following resources are available: