What is the difference between Sophos Standard Protection and Xstream Protection at FirstNet?

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Accepted Answer

At FirstNet, Sophos Standard Protection covers core firewall needs. Xstream Protection adds zero-day protection, SD-WAN orchestration, DNS Protection, NDR Essentials and advanced reporting, with 30-day cloud log retention.

Standard covers the firewall itself, NAT, routing, VPN between sites and for remote access, and intrusion prevention. It also covers web protection, app control, TLS inspection and Sophos X-Ops threat intelligence. Both bundles include Security Heartbeat, which links the firewall to Sophos endpoints for Synchronized Security. Both also run TLS inspection on the Xstream FastPath engine, and Active Threat Response with X-Ops intel.

What only Xstream adds:
- Sandboxing, and machine learning that checks unknown files, for zero-day protection.
- Central Orchestration: SD-WAN, Central Firewall Reporting Advanced, and a connector for MDR and XDR.
- DNS Protection, NDR Essentials and third-party threat feeds.

Both bundles work whether your Sophos firewall sits on site or FirstNet hosts it. So pick based on your security needs, not where the firewall lives. Email Protection and Web Server Protection are separate add-ons.

FirstNet confirms the bundle during discovery, along with sizing. That is because the features you turn on affect which firewall model is right.