What’s new in Sophos XG v17.5 release?

In this huge release, appealing features for educational institutions including New Web Policy options and Chrome Authentication are included.  

Here’s a quick overview of the key new features in v17.5: 

• Education features such as policy-based control over Safe Search and YouTube restrictions, block-page overrides, and Chromebook authentication support 
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• Synchronized Security features including Lateral Movement Protection to prevent threats from spreading on the same network segment and Synchronized User ID to eliminate the need to integrate with Active Directory for user identification 
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• Email features with Sender Policy Framework (SPF) anti-spoofing protection and a new MTA based on Exim which closes a couple of tops requested feature differences with SG UTM 
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• Wireless APX access point support offers support for the new Wave 2 access points, providing faster connectivity and added scalability (and will come shortly following the main v17.5 release in MR1) 
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• Sophos Central Management of XG Firewall with new features for backup and firmware management, as well as a new zero-touch deployment option 
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• IPS protection is enhanced with the Cisco Talos IPS pattern library and more granular categories 
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• Management enhancements including enhanced firewall rule grouping with automatic group assignment and a custom column selection for the log viewer
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• Client authentication gets a major update with a variety of new enhancements, such as per-machine deployment, a logout option, support for wake from sleep, and MAC address sharing 
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• VPN and SD-WAN failover and failback including new IPSec failover and failback controls and SD-WAN link failback options 
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• Sophos Connect IPSec VPN client, free for all XG Firewall customers, that makes remote VPN easy for end users (not part of v17.5 but being made available at the same time for early access)
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• Airgap support enables XG Firewall to be updated via USB in situations where XG Firewall can’t get updates automatically via an internet connection due to an “airgap” or physical isolation (coming shortly following the main v17.5 release in an MR)