Sophos was founded by Jan Hruska and Peter Lammer and began producing its first antivirus and encryption products in 1985.[6] During the late 1980s and into the 1990s, Sophos primarily developed and sold a range of security technologies in the UK, including encryption tools available for most users (private or business). In the late 1990s, Sophos concentrated its efforts on developing and selling antivirus technology and embarked on a program of international expansion.[7]
In 2003, Sophos acquired ActiveState, a Canadian software company that developed anti-spam software.[8] In 2010, the majority interest of Sophos was sold to Apax Partners.[9]
In 2011, Utimaco Safeware AG (acquired by Sophos in 2008–9) was accused of supplying data monitoring and tracking software to partners that have sold to governments such as Syria. Sophos issued a statement of apology and confirmed that they had suspended their relationship with the partners in question and launched an investigation.[10][11] In February 2014, Sophos announced that it had acquired Cyberoam Technologies, a provider of network security products.[12] In June 2015, Sophos announced plans to raise US$100 million on the London Stock Exchange.[13] Sophos was floated on the FTSE in September 2015.[14] The company behind HitmanPro, Surfright, was acquired by Sophos in December 2015.[15]
On 14 October 2019, Sophos announced that Thoma Bravo, a US-based private equity firm, made an offer to acquire Sophos for US$7.40 per share, representing an enterprise value of approximately US$3.9 billion. The board of directors of Sophos stated their intention to recommend the offer to the company's shareholders unanimously.[16] On 2 March 2020, Sophos announced the completion of the acquisition.[17] In 2024, President Joe Levy was appointed acting CEO after Kris Hagerman resigned from the CEO position.[18]
From September 2003 to February 2006, Sophos served as the parent company of ActiveState, a developer of programming tools for dynamic programming languages: in February 2006, ActiveState became an independent company when it was sold to Vancouver-based venture capitalist firm Pender Financial.[19] In 2007, Sophos acquired ENDFORCE, a company based in Ohio, United States, which developed and sold security policy compliance and network access control (NAC) software.[20][21] In May 2011, Sophos announced the acquisition of Astaro, a privately held provider of network security products, headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts, USA and Karlsruhe, Germany.[22] At the time Astaro was the 4th largest UTM (Unified Threat Management) vendor and while the deal made sense at the time Forbes questioned its viability.[23] Sophos subsequently renamed the Astaro UTM to Sophos UTM. In November 2016, Sophos acquired Barricade, a start-up with a behavior-based analytics engine.[24] In February 2017, Sophos acquired Invincea, a software company that provides malware threat detection, prevention, and pre-breach forensic intelligence.[25][26][27]
In March 2020, Thoma Bravo acquired Sophos for US$3.9 billion.[28]
^"Sophos grows anti-malware ensemble with Invincea". Sophos. 8 February 2017. Archived from the original on 10 February 2017. Retrieved 11 February 2017. One may ask, if you already have great next-generation technology, why do you need Invincea's technology?...Think of Invincea as the superhero that takes our ensemble to the next level – the entity that adds neural network-based machine learning to the team.
