After a very successful early access program with hundreds of participants, we are extremely pleased to announce the availability of Sophos Firewall OS v21.
Sophos Firewall v21 bolsters protection and performance, scalability and resiliency, and streamlines management with several quality-of-life enhancements.  It’s a free upgrade for all Sophos Firewall customers and makes upgrading to our new 2nd Gen XGS Series Desktop models easy.

Watch the brief video below for an overview of what’s new, download the What’s New Guide, or read on for the full details.

Active Threat Response with third-party threat feeds

Active Threat Response has been extended with support for third-party threat feeds to enable easier integration with third-party SoC providers, MSPs, and various vertical or regional focused threat intelligence sources
Synchronized Security’s automated response to active threats is also extended to third-party threat feeds to isolate compromised devices and prevent lateral movement

Enhanced scalability

High-availability (HA) deployments gain added resilience and more seamless transitions for reduced down time
IPsec VPN gains improved manageability, configuration, and performance with up to a 3x improvement with the new 2nd Gen XGS Desktop models
Authentication and web enhancements also improve performance and scalability

Seamless upgrades

Any-to-any backup and restore for added flexibility when upgrading to the latest XGS Series appliances
Port mapping support to make it easy to upgrade to an appliance with a different port configuration
True zero-touch deployment and configuration from Sophos Central

Streamlined management

Multiple user-experience enhancements, including the overall look and feel, Control Center cards, as well as VPN and static route configuration optimization
Let’s Encrypt certificate support across many areas of the firewall
Expanded network object visibility to see where objects are being used

Learn more – with deep dive articles and demo videos

How to get v21
As with every firewall release, Sophos Firewall v21 is a free upgrade for licensed Sophos Firewall customers and should be applied to all supported firewall devices as soon as possible. This release not only contains great features and performance enhancements, but also important security fixes.
This firmware release will follow our standard update process.
Please note that Sophos Firewall firmware updates are now downloaded from Sophos Central. Get the full details here or follow the quick guide below to get the latest v21 firmware for your firewall:

Log in to your Sophos Central account and select “Licensing” from the drop-down menu under your account name in the top right of the Sophos Central console.

Select Firewall Licenses on the top left of this screen.

Expand the firewall device you’re interested in updating by clicking the “>” to show the licenses and firmware updates available for that device.

Click the firmware release you want to download (note there is currently an issue with downloads working in Safari, so please use a different browser such as Chrome).
You can also click “Other downloads” in the same box above to access initial installers and software platform firmware updates.

The new v21 firmware will be gradually rolled out to all connected devices over the coming weeks. A notification will appear on your local device or Sophos Central management console when the update is available, allowing you to schedule the update at your convenience.
Sophos Firewall v21 is a fully supported upgrade from any supported Sophos Firewall firmware version.
NOTE: Sophos Firewall v21 is NOT supported on XG Series devices, which are fast approaching end-of-life. Upgrading your XG Series firewall to XGS is easy – don’t delay, upgrade today!