Sophos Endpoint and Apple macOS 11 Big Sur

Hello Sophos Team,

as partners we find the way of communication disastrous. There is no information other than the login to a Central Admin account, neither on the homepage of the partner portal nor by email; even if a widespread operating system is not able to ensure the functionality of the Sophos software. Instead, a threat and a knowledgebase article will be communicated in the community with the promise of an EAP on 23.11.2020. Honestly? Really serious? To the customers who are affected by the non-transparent information policy, let's just say - take a vacation until maybe the EAP comes and works? Until then, please do not use your Mac?

Simply insane.

Maybe don't blindly upgrade one's Macs to a brand new operating system on day one and wait it out for at least a few weeks or maybe a month or more before considering installing it using an older Mac as a test platform, test, and if good, roll it out to all users.  I didn't have any problem Googling Sophos' compatibility with Intercept-X and Home Premium and have warned our users accordingly.  Remain on Catalina or earlier macOSes for the time being.  I had emails relating to Intercept-X compatibility in good time too, so I can't say Sophos was late with the information. 

Is it a bit disappointing that there is no compatible version of Sophos right now?  Yes, but at the same time, I'd rather Sophos do thorough testing against the public release and get it right without rushing things.  Catalina still works, and most of us should still be using that for a little while longer.

Thanks Martyn!

its a little bit funny, because in the last days i have seen a couple of other anti virus poducts, already working with big sur. so thats no reason. and we all know how users and customers are acting. especially mac users are still very special in this case... in our company we have blocked an upgrade for the macs... but you know......... ;-) the first step we have done, was to send a warning doing this upgrade. so im still testing which applications working and which not.

its a little bit funny, because in the last days i have seen a couple of other anti virus poducts, already working with big sur. so thats no reason. and we all know how users and customers are acting. especially mac users are still very special in this case... in our company we have blocked an upgrade for the macs... but you know......... ;-) the first step we have done, was to send a warning doing this upgrade. so im still testing which applications working and which not.

Yes, fully aware, but the effort in moving away from Sophos just because they haven't got Big Sur support out the box is too much across the fleet of Macs that I support.  Everybody remains on Catalina until I say so, and if a BOYD user decides to try something, they're pretty much on their own until such times official support is available.

Your mileage might vary, but it's probably not reasonable to compare 'other antivirus products' with Intercept X, especially when it has EDR activated. EDR just needs to be able to dig even deeper into the OS than 'regular' AV. Apple has made this more difficult (which is good from a security point-of-view) but in this case I can imagine it makes it a tough job for Sophos. Or are you comparing with a similar featured AV solution? 

thats true. and btw: i personally think sophos is still one of the best solutions you could find at this market. and therefore i wouldnt kick sophos out. i understand the point, that its not easy to deal with the changes, apple made with big sur and the trouble youll get as a developer... so lets hope that we will get a good working solution asap