Q-SOLUTION LIMITED

Secure Mail as a Service

Our Secure Mail service is a relay and hosted webmail service, enabling organisation to share protectively marked information up to OFFICAL with sensitive marking.

Features

• Closed community of mail users from authorised organisations
• Supports SMTP on-premise, Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace
• Leveraging public cloud services, providing resilience and capacity at scale
• Hosted webmail with delegated administration
• Directory service of users and organisations with opt-in option
• Phishing resistant Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) for webmail users
• Highly scalable anti-malware service
• Encryption in transit with enforced mTLS for SMTP relay customers
• Service desk for customer administrators
• 99.9% availability

Benefits

• Prevents accidental emails to recipients outside closed community
• Ensures encrypted email delivery between Internet and UK Government networks
• Wide range of mail services supported including cloud and on-premise
• Effective search for organisations and individuals using directory service
• Delegated administration allows organisation self-service
• Protection against phishing and malware
• Resilient and scalable infrastructure hosted in public cloud
• Emails with attachments can be sent reliably
• Data held entirely within UK Sovereign Data Centres
• Fully managed Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM)

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 contact@q-solution.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 15

Service ID

384646573577754

Contact

Kevin Hoskins
07538023530
contact@q-solution.co.uk

About your service

• Service categories:

  Applications

  Collaborative

  • Email
• Multi cloud support: No

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: No
• Cloud deployment model: Public cloud
• Service constraints: The following are the current limitations of the service. ; ; Individual message sizes can be up to 40MB via either webmail or SMTP
• System requirements:
  • Compliant Mail Client
  • Compliant Mail Server (RFC5321 and RFC5322)

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Yes
• Support response times: Response times to incidents are as per our SLA. Questions raised on an incident are responded to within an appropriate timeframe to ensure the incident is resolved within the given SLA
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: None or don’t know
• Phone support: No
• Web chat support: No
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: Support hours for the service desk is between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Friday excluding UK Public Holidays. Our Protective Monitoring and System Monitoring however operates 24/7/365 and will generate alerts throughout this period in the event of any priority incidents occurring.; ; The service availability outside of core hours allows for patches, change requests and enhancements to be made to the service. A scheduled maintenance window will operate with notification of changes published to the Service Desk Portal as well as communicated via the customers preferred channel.; ; By design, the services provides the necessary resilience to allow patching to occur without service interruption
• Support available to third parties: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: We have a detailed onboarding process that supports users and that can be provided upon request. The process details how users a provisioned onto the service and details the levels of support Q-Solution provides.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats: PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: This will be detailed in the On Boarding and Off boarding process documents provided to the customer and will align to the latest Data Protection Standards
• End-of-contract process: Details of any additional costs will be provided in the Off Boarding procedures. However, as a SaaS service, there would typically not be expected any additional costs for Off Boarding
• Documentation accessibility standard: None or don’t know
• How the documentation is accessible: Onboarding and offboarding documentation sent during onboarding

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
• Application to install: No
• Designed for use on mobile devices: No
• Service interface: Yes
• User support accessibility: None or don’t know
• Description of service interface: Users interface with the service through a portal in order to raise tickets. The technical service interface is via the SMTP protocol and APIs
• Accessibility standards: WCAG 2.2 AAA
• Accessibility testing: Users of the system interface at a human level through JIRA Service Desk. This is a SaaS product delivered by Atlassian where details of accessibility can be found on their website
• API: No
• Customisation available: No

Scaling

• Independence of resources: Our design maximises the use of all UK Hyperscale AWS Availabilities Zones to ensure any increases or spikes in capacity have no detrimental impact on the services or customers. The service is monitored 24/7 with alerting to Q-Solution and customer service desks as required.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: Yes
• Metrics types: Realtime cost analysis, Message Volumes, Total registered users and Geolocation information
• Reporting types: Real-time dashboards
• Resource tagging: Yes
• FOCUS resource tagging: Yes

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

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

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom
• User control over data storage and processing locations: No
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 4.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least once a year
• Penetration testing approach: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CHECK service provider
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with another standard
  • Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: No
• Equipment disposal approach: Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v4.0, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Data held on the Secure Email Service is considered OFFICIAL. Q-Solution will support any requirements to export data as part of the On Boarding Process
• Data export formats: CSV
• Data import formats: CSV

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks:
  • Private network or public sector network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
• Data protection within supplier network: TLS (version 1.2 or above)

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: Availability of the service during working hours (8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday excluding Bank Holidays) - 99.9% Availability of the service outside of working hours - 99.5%
• Approach to resilience: The service is designed and built to be entirely cloud native and serverless. Detailed information on the design for resilience of the solution can be provided during the On Boarding process and subject to confidentiality provisions
• Outage reporting: Email alerts and real time customer facing dashboards

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Limited access network (for example PSN)
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: Only support staff with SC clearance have access. Access is restricted to individuals accredited machines. Support staff required password and MFA. Account activity is protectively monitored and alerted. Staff have a single master account for logging in and 'Assume Role' into other accounts enable fine grain authentication and access on a 'needs to know' basis.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
  • Public key authentication (including by TLS client certificate)
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Limited access network (for example PSN)
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users contact the support team to get audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• How long system logs are stored for: At least 12 months

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: ISO/IEC 27001
• Information security policies and processes: Our Security Working Group oversees the implementation, maintenance and improvement of our ISO27001:2022 Information Security Management System (ISMS). This ISMS encompasses numerous process, policies and procedures including Information Security Policy, Acceptable Usage Policy, Statement of Applicability (SOA), Risk Assessment, Secure Development Policy, MMAE Policy, Business Continuity Policy and Plan and Change and Configuration Management among many others.; Additionally we have an independent IT Health Check (ITHC) performed by a CHECK Team annually and are certified to Cyber Essentials Plus (CES+)
• Software Security Code of Practice: Yes

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Supplier-defined controls
• Configuration and change management approach: All software and infrastructure components are built through Infrastructure as Code, stored within a secure and backed up repository. As well as peer reviews through PR's the CI/CD Pipeline implements a number of security detection techniques to prevent compromised code being deployed into the environments
• Vulnerability management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Vulnerability management approach: We have a separately documented vulnerability management process that can be shared with customers upon request covering areas such as Monitoring, Threat Detection, Security Alerting, Compliance, Audit Logging, SIEM, Patch Management and anti malware
• Protective monitoring type: Supplier-defined controls
• Protective monitoring approach: We have a separately documented Protective Monitoring process that can be shared with customers upon request covering areas such as Monitoring, Threat Detection, Security Alerting, Compliance, Audit Logging and SIEM
• Incident management type: Supplier-defined controls
• Incident management approach: We have a comprehensive documented approach to both Incident and Problem Management. This information, in the form of PDF can be provided to customers on request
• Post-quantum cryptography secure: No

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v4.0)

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: Yes
• Connected networks: Public Services Network (PSN)

Pricing

• Discount for educational organisations: No
• Free trial available: No

Discount percentage by annual call-off contract value (excluding VAT)

• Less than £250,000: 0%
• Between £250,000 and £500,000: 0%
• Between £500,001 and £1,000,000: 0%
• Between £1,000,001 and £2,500,000: 0%
• Between £2,500,001 and £5,000,000: 0%
• Over £5,000,001: 0%

Non-mandatory Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: BSI
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: Saturday 17 June 2023
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: N/A
• ISO 28000:2022 certification: No
• ISO 9001 certification: No
• Quality management systems (QMS): Yes
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Please provide your Cyber Essentials Certificate Number: C47ab28a-34ed-45e1-93b4-3d1f9215cce2
• Cyber essentials plus: Yes
• Please provide your Cyber Essentials Plus Certificate Number: 4c984142-4fb8-4f4d-85e1-78567c6a7427
• Other security certifications: No

Social value

• Section B - Commitment for Future: Delivery:

  • Mission: Kick start economic growth. To secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 - with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.

    Policy Outcome 1: Fair work: That offers fair wages and good working conditions. Help people get a job, stay in work, and progress in their careers, with good employment opportunities across the country. Notes: Where there is a large proportion of labour costs in the contract, commercial teams should consider MAC in Outcome 1 as a priority

    • New or retained jobs on the contract workforce in the relevant area that meet the criteria set out in MAC 1b, 1c and 1d
    • New apprenticeships on the contract workforce in the relevant area that meet the criteria set out in MAC 1b
    • Activities that support an environment where staff are educated about and feel empowered to report and address bullying and harassment
    • Payment of more than the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage (as appropriate) to the contract workforce
    • Monitoring and reporting of gender and ethnicity pay gaps and plans to address them where necessary
    • Entitlement to sick pay for the contract workforce, with provision in place for any staff who do not meet the earnings threshold for statutory sick pay, payment of sick pay from day one of absence and payment of staff on the contract workforce who are off sick a replacement income of 100% of their usual earnings for as long as possible
    • Understanding of in-work progression issues affecting the market, industry or sector relevant to the contract, and in the supplier’s own organisation and those of its key sub-contractors
    • Measures to support in-work progression to help people in the contract workforce, to move into higher paid work by developing new skills relevant to the contract
    • Support for the contract workforce by providing career advice, and providing opportunities for staff working on the contract with in-work progression career development into known skills shortages or high growth areas
    • Support for educational attainment relevant to the contract, including training schemes that address skills gaps and result in recognised qualifications
    • Understanding of the modern slavery risks and issues affecting the market, industry, sector or country (of origin or of source) relevant to the contract, and the workforce in the supplier’s own organisation and those of its key subcontractors
    • Outline policies and practices to be applied to or put in place for the contract to mitigate and manage modern slavery risks, including: Pre-employment checks, recruitment practices. Workplace conditions, safeguarding plans and processes in place and regular monitoring with relevant groups considered, which may include sampling

  • Mission: Kick start economic growth. To secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 - with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.

    Policy Outcome 2: Skills for growth: Supporting growth sectors and addressing skills gaps.

    • Understanding of employment and relevant skills issues, and of the education and training issues relating to the contract. Illustrative examples: demographics, skills shortages, new opportunities in high growth sectors, geographic/local community and skills/employment challenges
    • Support for educational attainment relevant to the contract, including training schemes that address skills gaps and result in recognised qualifications
    • Activities to support relevant sector related skills growth and sustainability in the contract workforce. Illustrative examples: careers talks, curriculum support, literacy support, safety talks and volunteering
    • Delivery of apprenticeships, supported internships and T Level industry placement opportunities (Level 2, 3 and 4+) in relation to the contract

  • Mission: Kick start economic growth. To secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 - with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.

    Policy Outcome 3: Resilient, innovative and flexible supply chains: Support economic growth through enabling resilient businesses, opportunities for small businesses and voluntary, community and social enterprises

    • Activities that demonstrate a collaborative way to work with a diverse range of businesses as part of the supply chain
    • Advertising of supply chain opportunities openly and to ensure they are accessible to a diverse range of businesses, including advertising all subcontracting opportunities on Contracts Finder
    • Ensuring accessibility to contracting and subcontracting opportunities for disabled business owners and employees
    • Structuring of the supply chain selection process to ensure fairness (e.g. anti-corruption) and encourages participation by a diverse range of businesses, including with regard to new businesses, entrepreneurs, start-ups, SMEs, VCSEs and mutual

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 contact@q-solution.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.