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XG Firewall v18 MR4 is Now Available

More info available here: Sophos XG Firewall release notes

XG Firewall v18 Maintenance Release 4 (MR4) is packed with enhancements to performance, security, reliability and the management experience.  XG Firewall MR4 also enables great new Sophos Central Management capabilities.

Table of Contents

Enhancements in XG Firewall v18 MR4

High Availability

  • Improved FastPath performance for Active-Passive pairs
  • HA support in Amazon Web Services using the AWS Transit Gateway (coming soon to the AWS marketplace)
  • Improved high availability setup and upgrades

VPN Enhancements

  • New advanced options for IPSec remote access (replacing scadmin)
  • Sophos Connect VPN client downloads now available from the user portal
  • Enforcement of TLS 1.2 for SSL VPN on site-to-site and remote-access connections

Security and other Enhancements

  • Stronger password hash – which will prompt you to change your password when upgrading to take full advantage of this important feature (see prompt below)
  • Password complexity have been enabled for all the passwords
  • Web Filtering – Websites that are identified as containing child sexual abuse content by the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) will be automatically blocked when any web filtering is enabled. See https://www.iwf.org.uk/ for more information on the IWF.
  • Cloud Optix integration – Cloud Optix is now XG Firewall aware enabling the two solutions to work better together (full details).
  • Synchronized Application Control – a new option will automatically clean up discovered apps that are over a month old
  • Authentication – users can now be created for RADIUS using UPN format
  • 70 field reported issues have been resolved (see the list below)

    Be sure to take advantage of the new secure password hash system by resetting your admin password when prompted.

New Sophos Central Enhancements

  • New Partner Dashboard enabling Sophos partners to do group policy management across their customer base – make a change once and have it automatically replicate across multiple firewalls
  • New Group Policy Import enables one firewall to define the group policy during group setup making it easy to migrate from legacy CFM or SFM platforms
  • Scheduled Firmware Updates enables MR4 to be the first firmware you schedule using this new option
  • Full HA Support enabling easier management and improved fail-over support


New Group Policy Import makes switching to Sophos Central from CFM or SFM quick and easy.

With legacy SFM and CFM platforms coming to end of life soon, Sophos Central provides the ultimate platform for managing all your firewalls moving forward.  If you haven’t already, now is the time to switch.

Issues resolved in v18 MR4

  • NC-59149 [API Framework] CSC hangs as all 16 workers remains busy
  • NC-50703 [Authentication] Access server restarted with coredump using STAS and Chrome SSO
  • NC-54576 [Authentication] Sophos Connect connections exhausting virtual IP pool
  • NC-57273 [Authentication] Create users for RADIUS in UPN format
  • NC-59129 [Authentication] Authentication Failed due to SSL VPN (MAC BINDING) - Logging does not carry any information for the cause.
  • NC-61017 [AWS] AWS: TX-DRP increases constantly and affecting production traffic
  • NC-59574 [Base System (deprecated)] Sometimes hotfix timer is deleted
  • NC-58587 [Clientless Access] Clientless access service crashes
  • NC-59411 [DNS] Unable to add "underscore" character in DNS host entry
  • NC-54604 [Email] POPs/IMAPs (warren) dropping connection due to ssl cache error
  • NC-59897 [Email] Specific inbound mail apparently not being scanned for malware
  • NC-60858 [Email] PDF attachment in inbound email got stripped by XG firewall Email Protection
  • NC-63870 [Email] XG creates infinite connection to self on Port 25
  • NC-59406 [Firewall] Kernel crashed due to conntrack loop
  • NC-59809 [Firewall] Loopback rule not hit when created using Server access assistance (DNAT) wizard and WAN interface configured with network rather then host
  • NC-59929 [Firewall] Firewall Rules not visible on GUI, Page stuck on Loading
  • NC-60078 [Firewall] WAF: Certificate can't be edit via API/XML import
  • NC-61226 [Firewall] Different destination IP is shown in log viewer for Allow and Drop firewall rule when DNAT is enabled
  • NC-61250 [Firewall] Memory leak (snort) on XG 430 rev. 2 running SFOS v18
  • NC-61282 [Firewall, HA] Failed to enable HA when a New XG is replaced in place of another XG.
  • NC-62001 [Firewall] Kernel Panic on XG550
  • NC-62196 [Firewall] Policy Test for Firewall, SSL/TLS and Web with DAY does not match with Schedule rule
  • NC-63429 [Firewall] Kernel stack is corrupted in bitmap hostset netlink dump
  • NC-65492 [Firewall] User is not able to generate access code for policy override
  • NC-59747 [Firmware Management] Upgrade to the v18 SR4 failed on Azure
  • NC-58618 [FQDN] [coredump] fqdnd in Version 18.0.2
  • NC-62868 [HA] HA - Certificate Sync fails in Aux
  • NC-64269 [HA] IPv6 MAC based rule not working when traffic is load balanced to Auxiliary
  • NC-64907 [HA] The auxiliary appliance crashes when broadcast packet is generated from it
  • NC-65158 [Hotspot] Voucher Export Shows Encrypted PSKs With SSMK
  • NC-57661 [IPS-DAQ-NSE] [NEMSPR-98] Browser 'insecure connection' message when NSE is on but not decrypting
  • NC-58391 [IPS-DAQ-NSE] TLS inspection causing trouble with incoming traffic
  • NC-61498 [IPS-DAQ-NSE] Symantec endpoint updates URL is getting failed when DPI interfere
  • NC-63242 [IPS-DAQ-NSE] SSL/TLS inspection causing outbound problems with Veeam backups
  • NC-59774 [IPsec] Charon shows dead Status
  • NC-59775 [IPsec] Follow-up: Sporadic connection interruption to local XG after IPsec rekeying
  • NC-60361 [IPsec] Intermittently incorrect IKE_SA proposal combination is being sent by XG during IKE_SA rekeying
  • NC-61092 [IPsec] Strongswan not creating default route in table 220
  • NC-62749 [IPsec] Responder not accepting SPI values after its ISP disconnects
  • NC-61101 [L2TP] Symlink not created for L2TP remote access
  • NC-62729 [L2TP] L2TP connection on alias interface not working since update to v18
  • NC-59563 [Licensing] Apostrophe in email address : Unable to load the "Administration" page from System > Administration
  • NC-63117 [Logging Framework] Garner is core-dumping frequently
  • NC-61535 [Network Utils] Diagnostics / Tools / Ping utility not working with PPPoE interface
  • NC-62654 [nSXLd] NSXLD Coredump caused device hang
  • NC-59724 [RED] Back-up from v17.5 MR10 Fails to Restore on v18
  • NC-60081 [RED] Unable to specify Username and Password when using GSM 3G/UMTS failover
  • NC-60158 [RED] FQDN host Group appearing in RED configuration - Standard /split network
  • NC-60854 [RED] Red S2S tunnel static routes disappear on firmware update
  • NC-63803 [RED] FailSafe Mode After Backup Restore - Reason Unable To Start RED Service
  • NC-55003 [Reporting] Keyword search engine report not working
  • NC-59106 [Reporting] Security Audit Report missing information in "Number of Attacks by Severity Level" section
  • NC-60430 [Reporting] XG firewall send duplicate copies of schedule executive report
  • NC-60851 [Reporting] Scheduled reports won't be sent
  • NC-62804 [SecurityHeartbeat] Registration to central security heartbeat does not work via upstream proxy
  • NC-62182 [SFM-SCFM] Admin can not able to change password of SF 18.0 device from SFM/CFM device level
  • NC-61313 [SNMP] Memory Utilization mismatch between UI and atop/SNMP.
  • NC-64454 [SNMP] XG86 - /tmp partition becomes 100% full because of snmpd logs
  • NC-53896 [SSLVPN] Enforce TLS 1.2 on SSL VPN connections
  • NC-60302 [SSLVPN] All the SSL VPN Live connected users get disconnected when admin change the group of one SSL VPN connected user
  • NC-60184 [UI Framework] Missing HTTP Security Headers for HSTS and CSP
  • NC-61206 [Up2Date Client] XG Fails To Fetch hotfixes/patterns : File /conf/certificate/u2dclient.pem Missing
  • NC-62689 [VFP-Firewall] When fastpath (firewall-acceleration) is enabled ,traceroute will show time-out on the XG hop
  • NC-63783 [VFP-Firewall] Unable to start the IPS
  • NC-64470 [VFP-Firewall] Auto reboot/nmi_cpu_backtrace due to VFP.Disabling firewall acceleration did fix the issue
  • NC-63058 [VirtualAppliance] Incorrect Virtual XG Firewall Model Name Showing in GUI and CLI
  • NC-47994 [Web] Pattern updates for SAVI and AVIRA are failing
  • NC-54173 [Web] URL Group - add URL control fails on leading/trailing whitespace
  • NC-51888 [WebInSnort] IPP/AirPrint not accessible after upgrade software appliance firmware to 18.0 EAP1
  • NC-54978 [WebInSnort] When a HTTPS connection is not decrypted, the reports will show a hit to the site but no bytes sent/received
  • NC-62448 [WebInSnort] Core dump on Snort
  • NC-63515 [WebInSnort] NSE: Unsupported EC type with App control and web policy
  • NC-64875 [WebInSnort] HTTP Pipelining errors in DPI mode with non-pipelined traffic

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 MR4 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 matrix 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:

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!

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