TSG Wins Sophos UK SMB Partner of the Year 2017 Award

For the 7th year in a row, TSG has won the UK SMB Partner of the Year, presented at Sophos’ EMEA premier partner event in Lisbon earlier this month. Our CTO, Paul Burns, commented:

“TSG is delighted to have been selected from a very strong UK partner community as the number one in UK SMB. The awards take into account many areas including our commitment to training, product adoption, the security council and promoting the importance of security through events and webinars. I believe winning awards like this is a simple testament to our highly accredited staff and strong partnership, which positions TSG as one of the most accredited Sophos partners in the World. Customers can be assured working with TSG on Sophos that they are selecting the best”

“In recent times we have seen a drastic increase in phishing attacks and malware, with headline-grabbing events in recent weeks. Security is something that is often an afterthought, similar to disaster recovery. It’s time for a change and it’s clearly far better to adopt the right technologies before an attack or financial loss; it’s all about staying one step ahead. TSG can offer advice and guidance on your current security practices and what might be appropriate to consider, whether that is simple protection or getting yourself ready for GDPR. If you have not already done so talk to us about these two leading security protection technologies; Intercept X and Phish Threat. TSG has been partnered with Sophos for over 15 years, so you can trust in us to deliver.”

TSG has been a key partner to Sophos in delivering these new technologies to the SMB market in the UK. As one of only two Platinum Solutions Providers, TSG hosts a plethora of talented and knowledgeable staff that can deploy such security solutions into businesses to keep them protected. The likes of Intercept X, alongside other exclusive products such as Sophos Synchronised Security, are driving the IT industry to be safer and better protected from the ever-growing malicious digital threats that can cost businesses thousands, and the economy billions, of pounds. Sophos’ Michelle Trimble commented:

“This is a fantastic achievement and a true testament to TSG’s accomplishments. Not only does TSG continue to grow year on year due to exceptional strategic planning, but they are also highly trained to support their customers with a number of engineers in this space. Each year TSG takes away key learnings from the Sophos Partner Conference, and maps its security business to grow in line with today’s ever changing landscape of threats. Overall TSG has had a fantastic year and this award is very well deserved.”

Sophos has gone from strength to strength in the IT security industry, and its closing financial year reflects that with an increased unlevered free cash flow of $133m from $46m the previous year.

Why has Sophos seen such healthy growth, and how has TSG contributed?

Sophos provides patented, unrivalled security technology that is exclusive to Sophos products. Recently, the WannaCry outbreak caused chaos across the world, and significantly in the UK with high profile attacks on the NHS. In Europe, high-profile victims include Nissan, Renault, Telefonica and others. Thankfully, those who have Sophos Intercept X will have been protected from this attack, and any other Ransomware attack that is anticipated. Intercept X in particular has been a massive success for both Sophos and TSG, with TSG growing orders by over 200% in FY17 and continuing to increase the support offered to small and medium sized businesses.

Kris Hagerman, Chief Executive Officer at Sophos commented: “FY17 was another strong year for Sophos, in which we made significant progress against our strategic goals, and delivered operational and financial performance above our expectations. We have a differentiated strategy of delivering innovative, simple, and highly effective cybersecurity solutions for mid-market enterprises, synchronizing across end-user and network security – all in partnership with our channel. Encouragingly, the strong momentum at the heart of this performance was manifested across all major regions and products, and in both new business and renewals. We have issued a medium-term outlook as a sign of our confidence in delivering sustainable growth in billings and profitability over the longer-term.”

Some TSG customers are now also using Sophos’ new Phish Threat product, which allows businesses to create dummy phishing emails and distribute them within their own business. These emails can be monitored and it helps give your business an overview of how likely your employees are to fall for a phishing scam. Educating people on how to identify phishing and other malicious emails is key to avoiding the incident in the first place.
Why is 2017 a big year for Sophos and security?

Putting the WannaCry attack to one side, IT security will have an impact on all businesses in the UK. Of course, security is becoming an increasingly popular topic in the media because of these large-scale attacks; DocuSign is another recent hacking victim. It ties in with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) legislation that will come into effect on May 25th 2018.

From this date, if your business does not comply with the standard level of required to protect your data, your company (depending on the data breach) can be fined either 4% of your turnover or up to £17.5m, whichever is greater.

The implementation of such solutions can take time, especially for larger businesses. That’s why it’s crucial to get your business updated with the relevant technologies and to ensure you comply with the new laws coming in place.

TSG will be running webinars and events on GDPR and show you how you can use innovative technologies to ensure you’re compliant – watch this space.

Is there any upcoming development from Sophos?

In February 2017, Sophos acquired Invincea, a company built on intelligent machine learning to combat malicious threats and build world-class machine learning technologies into threat defences.

Founder and CEO of Invincea, Anup Ghosh said “It’s been my unique privilege and reward of a lifetime to start and lead Invincea as we made the world of cybersecurity a better place. I’m excited to join the Sophos team and continue that tradition of innovation on a much larger scale.”

This acquisition by Sophos allows it to bridge the gap between machine learning and its current products, so it’s expected that these technologies will be merged into Sophos’ current product stack. This will greater increase its unique security technologies and solidify its place as a market leader in endpoint security solutions.

Sophos is continuously driving the security industry to achieve more with the use of fantastic technologies. As a key provider of Sophos solutions, TSG will continue to work alongside Sophos to ensure the delivery of its solutions to businesses around the UK and minimise the damage from cyber-attacks.