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Sophos Home is security software which protects your device from malware and malicious websites. Sophos Home Free includes always-on anti-virus, parental web filtering, and remote management of up to three devices. After creating a free account with Sophos, you can download the software directly from their website on up to three computers. Sophos Home can be used on Windows, Mac, and Linux computers.

The University of Otago has an agreement with Sophos for employees to have access to Sophos Home Premium for free for their personal devices. Sophos Home Premium provides further support such as ransomware security, banking privacy and identity protection, a malware removal tool, and more. This is a separate, personal Sophos account, and is not linked to your University username and password credentials, so you will need to create a new password for this account and not use your University password for it.

To acquire Sophos Home Premium under the University’s agreement:

  1. Go to the Sophos Home Commercial Use Edition page.
  2. Enter your University email address—this is to confirm you are an employee of the University, this does not link to your University login credentials.
  3. Check your University staff mailbox for the Sophos email with instructions.
  4. When you are asked to register, create your Sophos account using your University email address but using a different password to the one you use to log in to University systems.
  5. You can now download Sophos Home Premium on up to 10 personal computers, managed by logging in to the Sophos Home website with the Sophos account you created in step 4 (i.e. not your University login credentials)

While your University staff email address is used to gain access to the Sophos Home Premium edition, the University is unable to provide IT support for this as it is a personal account on a personal device.