Bytes Software Services

Sophos Central Email Advanced

Sophos Email is a cloud-based secure email gateway solution built to integrate seamlessly with popular email platforms (Exchange Online, Google Suite etc..). Sophos Email is engineered to keep businesses safe from email threats such as Malware, Zero Day, Phishing, Spam while also preventing Data Loss and providing Email Encryption. bssgc

Features

• Anti-Spam
• Malware Scanning
• Cloud Sandbox
• Malicious URL Detection
• SPF, DKIM, DMARC
• Impersonation Phishing Protection
• Email MX Gateway or Microsoft 365 Mailflow Rules
• Email TLS, On Demand and S/MIME Encryption
• Data Loss Prevention
• Microsoft 365 Protection Post-delivery

Benefits

• Single cloud management console
• Comprehensive Reporting
• Microsoft 365 Integration
• Automatically identify high-profile targets for malware-free impersonation
• Protect sensitive data with email encryption and data loss prevention
• Integration with Sophos Managed Detection and Response
• Self Service Email Quarantines
• Zero Day Threat Email Sandboxing for Threat Protection
• Higher Bulk Mail Limits for larger email senders

£5.41 a user a month

• Education pricing available
• Free trial available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at tenders@bytes.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 14

Service ID

305709203272908

Contact

Chris Swani
+44 (0) 7951 326815
tenders@bytes.co.uk

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: Yes, but can also be used as a standalone service
• What software services is the service an extension to: Sophos Email is available as a Standalone Solution. But it also tightly integrates into the Sophos Extended Detection and Response (XDR) and Managed Detection and Response (MDR) Services to provide customers with integrated threat protection and response if threats are detected as being email based attacking endpoint devices
• Cloud deployment model: Public cloud
• Service constraints: Supports Sophos products only.
• System requirements: Email MX Gateway or Microsoft M365 Mail Flow Rule integration

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Email or online ticketing
• Support response times: "Sophos Support is available 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, 52 weeks per year, including statutory, public, and bank holidays.; ; For Enhanced Support Plan:; Critical Within 4 hours; High Within 8 hours; Medium Within 24 hours; Low Within 24 hours; ; For Enhanced Plus Support Plan:; Critical Within 1 hour; High Within 2 hours; Medium Within 24 hours; Low Within 24 hours; ; Please see this link for details (page 9):; https://www.sophos.com/en-us/medialibrary/PDFs/Support/Sophos-Support-Services-Guide.pdf"
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 24 hours, 7 days a week
• Web chat support: Web chat
• Web chat support availability: 24 hours, 7 days a week
• Web chat support accessibility standard: WCAG 2.1 AA or EN 301 549
• Web chat accessibility testing: N/a
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: "Enhanced ; • 24/7 multi-channel support ; • Software downloads, updates, & maintenance ; • Access to support knowledgebase and support forums ; • Warranty (Appliances only) ; • Hardware replacement (Appliances only) ; • Remote assistance support; ; Enhanced Plus - includes all features of the Enhanced plan above and the following:; • Remote consulting; • Priority case and sample handling ; • Phone calls routed to senior Technical Support Engineers; ; TAM - includes all features of Enhanced and Enhanced plus with the following:; • Named Technical Account Manager (TAM) ; • Front of the line access to product information ; • Personalized communications and alerts ; • Performance and feature optimization ; • Enhanced escalation ; • Emergency Onsite Support; ; Please see this link for reference:; https://www.sophos.com/en-us/support/technical-support"
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: "The following resources are available:; • Sophos Central Admin Help:; https://docs.sophos.com/central/Customer/help/en-us/index.html; • Sophos TechVids:; https://techvids.sophos.com/"
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: "Some reports such as Data Loss Prevention Violations and At Risk Users can be exported to CSV or PDF.; ; Users/People list can be exported to CSV."
• End-of-contract process: Customers must disconnect from the Sophos Email Service (either via modification of MX settings or deleting MFR in M365) to prvent disruption of their email flow.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
• Application to install: Yes
• Compatible operating systems:
  • Linux or Unix
  • MacOS
  • Windows
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: Sophos Email provides email hygine for email solutions like M365 or GMail. This means that users can send / receive emails from their devices using native email apps or specific email applications and still benefit from Sophos Security to ensure inbound email is safe, while outbound emails are sent securely and compling with any Data Loss Prevention / Email Encryption requirements
• Service interface: Yes
• User support accessibility: None or don’t know
• Description of service interface: "Sophos Email Advanced is managed through Sophos Central.; Sophos Central has a simple and intuitive dashboard, offering easy navigation and alert functions.; ; The Sophos Email management console has the following sections:; • Dashboard; • Logs & Reports; • Mailboxes; • Quarantined Messages; • Policies; • Settings; ; The Policies page of the console is where Email Security and Data Loss Prevention policy settings can be configured."
• Accessibility standards: None or don’t know
• Description of accessibility: The Sophos Central Admin Console accessed at https://cloud.sophos.com/ with supported web browsers.; Sophos Central currently supports the following browsers:; • Google Chrome.; • Microsoft Edge.; • Mozilla Firefox.; • Apple Safari (Mac only).; ; Recommend install or upgrade to a supported version in the above list and to always run an up-to-date version. Sophos aims to support the latest version and previous versions of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari.; ; Aside from the SuperAdmin account, only users with an admin role can access the management console. The login requires an email and password as well as an MFA (Multi-factor Authentication)
• Accessibility testing: Sophos Central does not currently have a VPAT compliance attestation. As a central console, many separate Sophos products appear in Sophos Central. Some of these products are accessibility compliant and we continue to improve the accessibility of our individual products.
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: "Sophos Central has a public API program that can automate monitoring, security, and administration activities in Sophos Central. It can do many of the things normally done in the Sophos Central Admin Console including Live Discover queries and pulling events/alerts into a SIEM.; ; All our APIs are offered as RESTful HTTP endpoints over the public internet. We use standard authentication, JSON requests and responses, and standard HTTP verbs. All communication is over HTTPS.; ; Please see the following link for details:; https://developer.sophos.com/intro; https://developer.sophos.com/apis"
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats: HTML
• API sandbox or test environment: No
• Customisation available: No

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Sophos Central is segmented into a number of logically separate virtual networks based on the various workloads they perform (such as authentication or endpoint management). All workloads are then placed into auto-scaling groups, behind a load balancer, so that when a particular workload sees increased load/traffic, additional temporary resources can be allocated to give the group capacity to handle the load.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: "The Sophos Email Dashboard shows the following information:; • Potential Threats Identified; • Mailboxes Protected; • Inbound Emails Scanned; • Outbound Emails Scanned; • Inbound Activity Summary; • Outbound Activity Summary; • Intelix Threat Summary; • At Risk Users; • Data Loss Violations"
• Reporting types:
  • Real-time dashboards
  • Regular reports

Resellers

• Supplier type: Reseller providing extra support
• Organisation whose services are being resold: Sophos

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Conforms to BS7858:2019
• Government security clearance: Up to Security Clearance (SC)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations:
  • United Kingdom
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • Other locations
• User control over data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Datacentre security standards: Managed by a third party
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: Another external penetration testing organisation
• Protecting data at rest: Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Data sanitisation type: Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation
• Equipment disposal approach: In-house destruction process

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: "Some reports such as Data Loss Prevention Violations and At Risk Users can be exported to CSV or PDF.; ; Users/People list can be exported to CSV."
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data export formats: PDF
• Data import formats: CSV

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • Other
• Other protection between networks: Sophos Email supports TLS gateway to gateway email encryption if the other email gateway supports this secure communication method. This tls - tls can be enforced if required.
• Data protection within supplier network:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • Other
• Other protection within supplier network: It is carried out using secured services such as SFTP, HTTPS, TLS encrypted, etc.

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Sophos Central does not provide a traditional SLA because the availability of our products is not dependent on the availability of the web portal. However, the availability of the web portal ranged between 99.99 and 100% over the past year, depending on geographic region.; ; Sophos Central status can be viewed here:; https://centralstatus.sophos.com/#!/
• Approach to resilience: Sophos Central is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), across a number of virtual machine instances and services that dynamically scale to handle the current Sophos Central workload.; ; Sophos Central is segmented into a number of logically separate virtual networks based on the various workloads they perform (such as authentication or endpoint management). All workloads are then placed into auto-scaling groups, behind a load balancer, so that when a particular workload sees increased load/traffic, additional temporary resources can be allocated to give the group capacity to handle the load.
• Outage reporting: Sophos Central status can be viewed here:; https://centralstatus.sophos.com/#!/; ; It also has a subscribe button at the top right to receive status notifications.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
  • Other
• Other user authentication: Access to the Sophos Central admin console requires a login (email and password) as well as MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication).; Sophos Central also supports Azure AD Federation authentication.; ; Except for the SuperAdmin, Users need to have an admin role assigned to them to get access to the Sophos Centrla admin console
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: "Sophos Central has a Role Management feature that provides admins the capability to assign pre-defined administrative roles to users who need access to the Sophos Central Admin Console. The following are the available pre-defined administrative roles:; • Super Admin; • Admin; • Help Desk; • Read-only; ; Please refer to this link for more information:; https://docs.sophos.com/central/Customer/help/en-us/central/Customer/concepts/AdminRoles.html"
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
  • Other
• Description of management access authentication: Access to the Sophos Central admin console requires a login (email and password) as well as MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication).; Sophos Central also supports Azure AD Federation authentication.; ; Except for the SuperAdmin, Users need to have an admin role assigned to them to get access to the Sophos Centrla admin console.

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: Between 1 month and 6 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: Between 1 month and 6 months
• How long system logs are stored for: Between 1 month and 6 months

Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: Coalfire Certifications
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: 16/01/2024
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: "The certificate scope comprises the Sophos information security management system supporting the operations underlying the ; Sophos Labs, Sophos Central, Sophos OPTIX, Intelix, and MDR/MTR services. The organizational scope includes the Security, ; Information Technology, Product, and Legal teams affecting the Sophos information security management system. These activities ; are governed by the implemented controls in accordance with the organizational Statement of Applicability."
• ISO 28000:2007 certification: No
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: Yes
• Who accredited the PCI DSS certification: A-Lign
• PCI DSS accreditation date: 09/02/2021
• What the PCI DSS doesn’t cover: It only covers our Sophos MTR Product.; ; Other Sophos Central products do not contain or protect any cardholder-related information and is therefore not required to be PCI Compliant.
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Cyber essentials plus: Yes
• Other security certifications: Yes
• Any other security certifications:
  • SOC 2 Type 2
  • ISO27001:2022

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: No
• Security governance approach: The Sophos Information security framework (SISP) is based upon leading practices such as ISO 27001, SOX, and PCI as well as with Sophos priorities. Our ISPF and Security policy is part of a holistic approach to Information Security Management. Contents of ISP and security policy drives development of technical security standards, processes, and configurations will be utilized by staff and vendors to implement security controls. They also provide the context for training, awareness, audits, and compliance assurance activities. Lastly, they provide Sophos with necessary information to risk adjust business initiatives and improve the state of the Sophos Information Security Program.
• Information security policies and processes: "Sophos has a dedicated cybersecurity team. The team has developed and deployed security policies, standards, and procedures validated by an active governance and audit program.; Sophos aligns with the NIST Cybersecurity Framework and ISO 27001 controls.; ; Please see this link for the High-Level Overview of the Sophos Security Policy:; https://www.sophos.com/en-us/trust/high-level-security-policy-overview"

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: Changes to the production environment are strictly done after following our Change management process (including approval from the Security team if needed) and are reviewed by the operational team.
• Vulnerability management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Vulnerability management approach: The Security team (Red team) is tasked with scanning systems for vulnerability scans.; We follow a risk-based approach while deciding on the remediation of vulnerabilities. ; ; Most of the systems are set for automated patch management. In cases where systems are set for manual patch updates, a time frame is mandated to the system owners to apply patches (especially security/ critical patches); All relevant teams involved in patch management (like system owners, business units, IT, Security, etc.) are notified in advance for patch activity. ; Patches are tested in a test environment before moving to the production environment.
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: Plans developed with guidance from the NIST 800-61 Computer Security Incident Handling Guide and we frequently review these plans for compliance with industry standards.; ; There are many ways Sophos identifies or becomes aware of security incidents:; • Security monitoring capabilities, often in our products, or complementary methods we have developed; • Bug-bounty reports; • Penetration test findings; • Vulnerability analysis; • Code and application analysis; • Research and threat intelligence analysis; • Customer notifications; To report a potential security incident, please see our Responsible Disclosure Program.; ; Please see this link for the Overview of the Sophos Incident Response:; https://www.sophos.com/en-us/trust/incident-response
• Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Incident management approach: Plans developed with guidance from the NIST 800-61 Computer Security Incident Handling Guide and we frequently review these plans for compliance with industry standards.; ; There are many ways Sophos identifies or becomes aware of security incidents:; • Security monitoring capabilities, often in our products, or complementary methods we have developed; • Bug-bounty reports; • Penetration test findings; • Vulnerability analysis; • Code and application analysis; • Research and threat intelligence analysis; • Customer notifications; To report a potential security incident, please see our Responsible Disclosure Program.; ; Please see this link for the Overview of the Sophos Incident Response:; https://www.sophos.com/en-us/trust/incident-response

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Conforms to a recognised standard, but self-assessed

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Social Value

• Social Value:

  Social Value

  Fighting climate change

  Fighting climate change

  We take our environmental management and the impact we have on the environment very seriously. We have environmental policies in place and hold the ISO14001 accreditation. Our environmental assessments are conducted annually by an external Lead ESOS Assessor; they are signed-off by the board and compliance reported to the regulator (the Environment Agency). Our environmental policy is published on our website at https://www.bytes.co.uk/company/sustainability/environmental.; Bytes achieved carbon net zero in March 2022 through approved carbon offsetting schemes. We are always seeking to reduce our impact on the environment. We aim to minimise waste, reduce pollutants and use renewable materials. Our offices have recycling facilities for cans, plastic and paper. We aim to reduce our office printing to zero within the next few years. ; An Environmental Steering Committee has been established to coordinate environmental activities and drive change.; To drastically reduce our emissions, we have switched to renewable energy. Our Head Office has reached our first milestone of using a specialist 100% renewable electricity provider. We are also exploring options to install solar panels on our Headquarters building.; Other environmental initiatives include installing electric vehicle charging points and encouraging staff to commute to work without the car (setting up a car share network and installing secure cycle parking).; We produce a SECR (Streamlined Energy and Carbon Reporting) report that details the companies energy consumption and carbon emissions. This report is produced annually by an independent assessor. ; This report provides details of our emissions in Scope 1, 2 and 3 categories. It details the activities previously taken to reduce emissions and also recommendations for further improvements.; For scope 1,2 and 3 emissions we aim to reduce these by 50% by 2025-2026 from our 2021 baseline.; We aim to be Net Zero by 2040, covering our own operational emissions.

Pricing

• Price: £5.41 a user a month
• Discount for educational organisations: Yes
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: There is no free version, just a time limited trial version which limits this product to 100 users for a 30 day period
• Link to free trial: http://central.sophos.com

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at tenders@bytes.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.