This article covers how to protect your Mac with Sophos Home after installing or upgrading you Mac to macOS 11 Big Sur.
Installation/upgrade on macOS 11 Big Sur
(Skip these 2 steps if Sophos Home is already installed).
1. If you do not have Sophos Home installed, download Sophos Home here
2. Run the installer and follow the on-screen prompts, use this article as a guide.
The installation/upgrade process involves 4 steps:
(Click on each step for more info. Video steps available below)
1 - Enabling System Extensions
A pop-up notification will inform you to click Allow to enable the needed extensions as applicable. There are 2 extensions involved: SophosWebNetworkExtension and SophosScan.You may need to check Security and Privacy to ensure there is nothing pending to be allowed
Apple menu

You are looking for this: (click on the images to see them in full size)




2 - Allowing Notifications
A message will appear on the top right, informing users to enable notifications. Click on the message and use the slider to turn them on. You may need to perform this twice.3 - Granting Full Disk Access to components by drag-dropping under Full Disk Access
A Welcome to Sophos window will instruct the user to drag-drop extensions into Full Disk Access.4 - Rebooting the Mac.
Once finished following all the steps, restart your Mac to complete the installation process.Video steps (click on the desired one to expand it):
Installing or upgrading Sophos Home 10.0.2
Allowing the Sophos Home Network Extension to enable Web Protection
Current status and updates - Updated January 19th 2021
Click on a header to expand it.
What's working - Updated January 19th 2021
Sophos Home 10.0.2 has been released to provide improvements to the product update process on Macs that were upgraded to macOS Big Sur This build supports:
macOS 11 - Big Sur Official release
(Other macOS 11 beta versions are not currently supported).
Sophos Home v10.0.2 currently supports the following features on macOS 11 Big Sur
- Real-Time Protection
- Ransomware protection
- Full System Scans
- Folder and external drivers scans
- Webcam and microphone protection
- Automatic Malware removal
- Web Protection
What's not yet working -Updated January 19th, 2021
- Sophos Home fully supports macOS 11. Please see Known Issues section for specific issues.
Known Issues
Click on a header to expand it.
"This device is vulnerable" message in dashboard due to Web Protection being disabled
Ensure you have updated to 10.0.2 (Right-click on the Sophos Home Shield ->…->Check for Updates).Incoming SSH connections will fail if running Sophos Home v10.0.1a1 + MacOS 11 Big Sur.
We have identified a possible root cause for this issue. Expected fix to come out on February 2021.Network based Time Machine backups fail with "disk is already in use" message
Time Machine backups to NETWORK locations (Time Capsule, NAS) are currently failing when Sophos Home is installed on Big Sur macOS 11 - Users will see a message reading "Time Machine couldn't complete the backup - The disk is already in use" This does NOT affect local backups, or backups to external devices/drives.This issue is currently under investigation by our development team. As a workaround, run the backup in Safe mode or use an external device to backup to. We expect this issue to be resolved by March of 2021.
Troubleshooting
Click on a header to expand it.
When Sophos Home starts, you may see an “Updating…” message
Note: for installations previous to November 27th, you may see "Action required!" instead.
This happens as soon as macOS 11 is loaded on a system that already has Sophos Home installed – This is expected, and the message will clear as soon as the update finishes. After that, you will be able to proceed with allowing notifications and clearing the welcome screen, as listed in the installation section.
You may check the update status by clicking on the Sophos Home Shield ->…->Check for Updates
If the message persists after waiting for an hour, uninstall Sophos Home and re-do the steps on this article to re-install.
Welcome to Sophos Home screen keeps appearing after completing the steps
First, ensure you are running Sophos Home 10.0.2 and one of the supported versions of macOS 11.
Second, ensure that the components added to Full Disk Access are check-marked,
Last, double check that there are no pending extensions waiting to be allowed under Security and Privacy>> General --> See these steps regarding how to allow system extensions.
If the Welcome to Sophos Home screen keeps appearing after following the above listed steps, you will need to manually add the com.sophos.endpoint.scanextension.systemextension AND/OR Sophos Scan component to Full Disk Access. and ensure it is check-marked.
***BEFORE YOU PROCEED***
If the com.sophos.endpoint.scanextension.systemextension AND/OR Sophos Scan is already listed in the Full Disk Access, you DO NOT need to add it again, ensure they are check-marked and then, if the window keeps appearing, add the other components listed here.
You will not be able to perform these steps until Sophos Home has fully upgraded (wait for the Updating... message to disappear).
Either use the Welcome to Sophos Home screen or Click on the
Apple logo -> System Preferences-> Security & Privacy
Scroll down to locate Full Disk Access
Use the padlock at the bottom left to unlock changes
Use the '+' symbol to add new components
Search for com.sophos.endpoint.scanextension.systemextension AND/OR Sophos Scan
(depending on which one is missing)
click Open
Once added to the list, ensure it is check-marked
After that, you should be able to click Done, and the Welcome to Sophos Home window should stop popping up.
***IMPORTANT***
If the com.sophos.endpoint.scanextension.systemextension AND/OR Sophos Scan cannot be found on the Mac AND they are not already listed in the Full Disk Access list , please uninstall Sophos Home and re-do the steps on this article to re-install.
If the Welcome to Sophos Home screen continues popping up after following the above steps, you may need to manually add additional components to the Full Disk Access , one at a time, and check-mark each one, until all show up on the list :
com.sophos.endpoint.scanextension.systemextension [This may show as Sophos Scan instead]
Sophos Diagnostic Utility
SophosScanAgent
SophosCleanD
SophosServiceManager
Sophos Scan
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