Sophos Firewall v23 is now in early access
Sophos Firewall v23 brings many of your top-requested enhancements in one feature-packed release.
From new AI-powered assistance and a modern REST API to streamlined rule management, stronger high-availability capabilities, expanded identity support, and simpler day-to-day administration, Sophos Firewall v23 is designed to make your firewall easier to manage, automate, and scale, while further strengthening its Secure by Design foundation.
While there are dozens of enhancements across all areas of the firewall, the highlights fall into five key areas:
AI and automation
With Sophos Firewall v23 and Sophos AI Defense, you gain better visibility into AI usage across your organization and can easily implement appropriate controls, while the new API enables you to automate firewall management. Also be sure to take advantage of the new AI assistant to help with constructing firewall rules.
What’s new:
- Enhanced AI governance and visibility support through Sophos AI Defense
- Modern REST API with token-based authentication with built-in API guide
- AI-powered Firewall Assistant in Sophos Fusion
Simplified management and greater resilience
Sophos Firewall v23 makes day-to-day administration easier and helps keep your network running smoothly, even under demanding conditions. Whether you’re managing a single firewall or hundreds, you’ll benefit from a redesigned rule management experience, improved visibility, faster performance, and significant enhancements to high availability.
What’s new:
- Completely redesigned firewall rule management experience
- Hardware-aware high availability monitoring and faster failover detection
- Improved HA stability under heavy load
- Automated firmware update scheduling in Sophos Fusion
- Faster and more responsive administration interface
- Improved navigation and firewall status visibility for administrators
Secure by Design enhancements
Sophos Firewall continues to build on its strong Secure by Design foundation with enhancements that further reduce your attack surface, improve security visibility, and simplify protection. New capabilities help secure DNS traffic, provide greater transparency into automated security updates, and make it easier to stay protected with the latest firmware and platform improvements.
What’s new:
- DNS over HTTPS (DoH) support for stronger DNS security
- Support for DNSSEC to authenticate DNS responses
- Visibility into applied hotfixes and security updates
- Modernized routing architecture and management
- Improved threat response event handling
- Additional platform hardening and security enhancements
Modern identity and access integration
As organizations continue to adopt cloud and hybrid identity services, Sophos Firewall v23 expands integration options and simplifies authentication. You can more easily connect users across on-premises and cloud environments while improving MFA onboarding and extending support to a wider range of devices and deployment scenarios.
What’s new:
- Entra ID support for Synchronized Security
- Google Workspace identity provider integration
- More secure MFA onboarding via email
- Chromebook single sign-on support
- Enhanced support for terminal servers and shared-user environments
Scalability, networking, and application protection
Sophos Firewall v23 includes a wide range of infrastructure and networking enhancements designed to help support your growing environment. From major Web Application Firewall enhancements and a redesigned DHCP service to expanded IPv6 support and improved service discovery, v23 delivers better scalability, performance, and flexibility.
What’s new:
- Major Web Application Firewall performance and scalability improvements
- Expanded WAF rule capacity and routing capabilities
- New DHCP service architecture
- mDNS reflector for education, campus, and segmented network environments
- Enhanced IPv6 and IPoE connectivity support
- Additional cloud platform deployment options
Summary
Sophos Firewall v23 delivers 30 of your most-requested enhancements, helping you to manage and secure your network more effectively. It makes Sophos Firewall easier to manage while continuing to strengthen its Secure by Design advantage. Whether you’re managing a single firewall or a large distributed deployment, you’ll benefit from improvements that save time, simplify administration, and strengthen protection.
More details
Review the What’s New Guide for more details.
Get started today
You can download the upgrade package or installer for v23 from the Sophos Firewall v23 EAP Registration Page. Simply submit your details and the download links will be emailed to you straight away.
All support during the EAP will be through our forums on the Sophos Firewall Community.
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