Sophos (XG) Firewall v18 MR5 is Now Available

XG Firewall v18 Maintenance Release 5 (MR5) is packed with enhancements to performance, security, reliability and central reporting.  With v18 MR5, we have published XG firewall integration for azure active directory and azure virtual WAN.

What's new in v18 MR5:

VPN Enhancements

• A huge 50% increase in concurrent IPSec VPN tunnel capacity (learn more)
• Port 443 sharing between SSL VPN and the Web Application Firewall (WAF)
• IPSec provisioning file support for remote access via Sophos Connect v2.1

SD-WAN

• Integration with Azure Virtual WAN for a complete SD-WAN overlay network (learn more)

Authentication

• Integration with Azure Active Directory (learn more)

Certificate Management and Security

• Form enhancements for creating certificate signing requests and certificates
• Enhanced security for private keys
• Upload/download support for PEM format certificates
• Enhanced workflows for certificate management

Synchronized Security

• Enhanced registration and de-registration in high-availability (HA) installations
  
• Missing Heartbeat enhancements to reduce notifications sent for intended/expected changes in endpoint status

Sophos Central Firewall Reporting

• New Cloud Application (CASB) report
  
• MSP Flex Pricing for MSP partners

Issues resolved in v18 MR5

• 50+ field reported issues have been resolved

More info available here: v18 MR5 release notes

Upgrade as soon as possible

While we always encourage you to keep your firewalls up to date with the latest firmware, over the next few months we are recommending you rapidly apply maintenance releases to ensure you have all the important security, performance, and feature enhancements applied as soon as possible.

Also ensure you have automatic pattern updates enabled so that you can be assured you have the latest protection updates.

XG Firewall v18 MR5 is an easy and fully supported upgrade from XG Firewall v17.5 MR6+ (including the latest v17.5 MR15 release). Please refer to the Upgrade information tab in the release notes for more details.

How to get it

As usual, this firmware update is no charge for all licensed XG Firewall customers. The firmware will be rolled out automatically to all systems over the coming weeks, but you can access the firmware anytime to do a manual update through the Licensing Portal.  Please refer to the documentation for more information on how to apply firmware updates.

Learning more about upgrading to XG Firewall v18

And if you still haven’t upgraded to v18, or are still exploring many of the new features, be sure to take advantage of all the resources available, including the recent “Making the Most of XG Firewall v18” article series that covers all the great new capabilities in XG Firewall v18:

• Xstream architecture, DPI engine, and TLS inspection
• Xstream TLS Inspection for a modern encrypted Internet
• FastPath Application Acceleration and SD-WAN Routing
• Zero-day threat and ransomware protection
• Network address translation (NAT)
• Route-based IPsec site-to-site VPN
• Switching to Sophos Central for Firewall Management

Also check out our new and improved Sophos Community XG Firewall home page! Subscribe to the XG Blog for the latest news and releases, get expert answers to your technical questions, and find useful Community-created content in our "Recommended Reads" section!