Sophos' endpoint solution has been rated more highly than its McAfee and Symantec counterparts.

Cascadia Labs carried out extensive tests on all the products and found that Sophos' was superior to McAfee's and Symantec's in deployment, usability, management, effectiveness and installation.

Jared Bryant, senior analyst at Cascadia Labs, said: "Businesses are a prime target for cybercrime and many are looking for impartial advice on how best to protect their network."

Sophos' Endpoint Security and Control "stood out" from the endpoint security products tested and is a "clear choice", Mr Bryant added.

The Sophos product was rated highly especially for stopping zero-day threats, he continued.

For day-to-day tasks and ease-of-use Endpoint Security and Control was also rated above the other two products by Cascadia.

In contrast, Symantec's product was rated as "capable but unremarkable" and "lacking in key features".

Symantec recently released a patch for a flaw in its flagship Norton Antivirus product and others.

A bug in ActiveX controls means hackers could run unauthorized software on a victim's computer, the company said.