Sophos has developed an interesting and innovative new security product that bridges the gap between its endpoint and network protection products. Called Security Heartbeat, it requires a Sophos XG firewall and any of Sophos’ cloud-based endpoint protection agents. The entry level firewalls start at $300 and larger models can go for ten times that, with support contracts extra.

We tested the Sophos products during November 2015. Sophos is not as well known as other firewall vendors, but the use of the heartbeat is such an obvious benefit and the kind of innovation that you wonder why it hasn’t been done before.