The virus scanner Sophos Anti-Virus is available for free use to all university employees with an account. Use is permitted for both private (Home Premium) and official (Intercept X, Endpoint Security) use.
1. Sophos Home Premium - private use
2. Sophos Intercept X (Sophos Central) - business use
3. Sophos Endpoint Security and Control - discontinued
The Sophos Home Premium antivirus software can be used free of charge by all students and employees of Bielefeld University for private devices running Windows and Mac.
Protection features include:
Registration via:
-> https://home.sophos.com/de-de/employee
First you have to create an account at Sophos by entering your personal university email address (@uni-bielefeld.de) and then follow the steps from the activation emails. Please enter a separate password (do not use the BITS password!).
Download after registration
-> :https://my.sophos.com/de-de/login (registration with created Sophos account)
After registration, the license runs for one year and can then be renewed again, provided that the eligibility still exists.
General max. term by the state contract current:30.09.2024
BITS offers the product Sophos Intercept X to protect end devices and servers from malware.
Automatic reports of incidents (virus attacks, suspicious files, etc.) are accepted centrally in the Admin Console by the IT supervisors responsible for the faculty/department.
The access rights of the IT supervisors in the Sophos Admin Console are limited to their own Faculty. The use of the Admin Console is subject to the terms of use (in German).
Cloud services, such as Sophos Intercept X, to improve the detection performance of the virus protection programs should be used according to the recommendation of the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI).
see: "OPS.1.1.4.A5 Operation and configuration of virus protection programs" in the IT-Grundschutz compendium of the BSI.
Data protection information can be found here (in German).
Users in the areas managed by BITS (Central Administration, Medical School OWL, etc.) receive this protection automatically in the course of desktop management on the official devices (Windows and macOS).
Users whose devices are managed by the decentralized IT supervisors either receive the software automatically or can request the installation files for the respective operating system from the responsible IT supervisor.
Info from 07.02.23:
Download no longer possible due to the imminent end of the product Only updates for existing installations will be provided until mid-2023.
Please contact your own supervisor to install the new solution via Sophos Central.
The Sophos Endpoint Security and Control product is intended for use on business devices.
-> Download or contact your own IT supervisor for installation
Important: When installing Sophos Endpoint, the web addresses for automatic updates, the BITS username and password are required. The addresses can be found under the download link.
Tip for supervisors:
For faculties/departments a centrally managed version for Windows computers is available in the university-wide AD.
Support for Sophos Home
Support for problems is available via the personal Sophos account directly from Sophos after logging in at https://my.sophos.com/de-de/login .
For students
BITS-Beratung (Support Office)
Room: University Main Building V0-215
Mo.–Fr. 09:30–16:00 h
Tel.: 0521 10612777
E-mail: bits@uni-bielefeld.de
For employees with a PC workstation provided by BITS
Service Desk
Mo.–Fr. 08:00–16:00 h
Tel.: 0521 106-6000
E-mail: servicedesk@uni-bielefeld.de
For other employees
Decentralised IT support of the faculty or institution.
How-to for SophosHome (on Sophos.com)
Configure Sophos updates (for Endpoint)