Sophos Mobile 9.5 – What’s New

Unless otherwise marked, all features discussed below apply to Sophos Mobile installed on-premises, managed in Sophos Central, or hosted “as-a-Service”.

Sophos Mobile as a Service

• Sophos Mobile will be updated today (Oct.30th) according to the maintenance schedule.

Sophos Mobile in Sophos Central

• Sophos Mobile on Sophos Central is tentatively planned to be updated on the week of December 9th.

Added support for Chromebook Security Management

The support for Chrome OS as a client platform has been added to Sophos Mobile 9.5.

• Supports device-side web filtering for Chromebooks and other Chrome devices
• Provides a Chromebook extension for enrollment, messages and compliance information
• Filtering for malicious web pages and 14 productivity web filtering categories
• All filtered pages can create events for reporting
• Extension white-/blacklistingG Suite or admin/self-service enrollment

Enhanced Android Device Management

• Supporting a new Android enterprise enrollment by leveraging QR codes. This allows enrolling multiple devices using the same code, including language and Wi-Fi configuration
• Improved app management by direct Android Enterprise Play Store integration for app approvals, private apps and web apps (matching iOS Web Clips)
• Support of extended Samsung device management via OEM Config. OEM Config provides all settings on Samsung devices which are not yet part of Android Enterprise

Enhanced Windows 10 Device Management

• Support of extended Wi-Fi configuration including WPA2 Enterprise

Usability Improvements

• Task Bundle Wizard simplifies the creation of task bundles
• Define default customer for Admin console
• Redesigned Sophos Mobile Control app for consistency with the new unified Sophos client UI style
• Sophos Mobile (on-premise) is now compliant with the WCAG 2.1 Level AA accessibility standard
• Admin will see a warning if managed devices are deleted, to avoid bricked devices
• Profiles and policies are unified under the “Policy” name

Other New Features and Enhancements

• Support locating multiple devices from the device list
• New device location report
• Improved supportability by setting the device-side log level remotely
• Improved supportability for the admin to pull the device log file remotely from a managed device

New Features in Intercept X for Mobile (formerly known as Sophos Mobile Security)

• Re-branded Sophos Mobile Security as Intercept X for Mobile for brand consistency
• New simplified app UI for consistency with the new unified Sophos client UI style
• Creation of events for MitM detections
• Creation of events for blocked or warned web pages in web filtering

Sophos Secure Email Improvements

This description consolidates improvements to the Sophos Secure Email app since the release of Sophos Mobile 9.0. Certain features may have been already delivered in an interim app release.

• iOS & Android: Favorite Folders – Up to 10 folders get synced automatically
• iOS: Mark contacts as favorites and contact number as communication default for calls/text
• iOS: Forward meeting invitations
• iOS: Scan documents and add to emails

Discontinued Features

• Removed management support for Android Things 1.0 and Windows 10 IoT devices

Platform Changes

• Added support for Android Q
• Added support for iOS 13
• Added support for macOS 10.15
• Added Windows Server 2019 as CA server

Upgrade Path

• Update to Sophos Mobile 9.5 is supported from versions 8.5, 8.6, and 9.0

Sophos Mobile – How to update to version 9.5

Note: Updating to Sophos Mobile 9.5 is possible from version 8.5 or higher. Former versions have to be updated to version 8.5 first. Please see: Sophos Mobile Control: Updating from version 5.0 or lower to version 8.1.

Sophos Mobile Control (SMC) client applications should be updated to the most recent version before the update to prevent any communication issues. The SMC app version 8.6 and 9.0 have been successfully tested with Sophos Mobile 9.5.

• Log in to MySophos
• Download the Sophos Mobile 9.5 setup and copy it to the machine where Sophos Mobile 8.5 or higher is installed.
• Run the setup with an administrative user.
  Note: During the update process, the Sophos Mobile Service must be stopped. You will be asked to stop the service by the Sophos Mobile 9.5 setup. While the service is stopped, users connected to the Sophos Mobile EAS Proxy might not receive emails.
• Follow the steps shown in the setup. The setup will update the database and files automatically.
  Note: If Windows and Android Internet of Things (IoT) devices are registered updating will be prevented.
  These devices have to be removed first.
• Once the update is finished, complete the setup.
• The Sophos Mobile service will be started again.

After following this procedure, the Sophos Mobile server was successfully updated.

More info – Check out the Sophos Mobile documentation page here!