Press Release

TAMPA, FLORIDA--(Marketwire - May 9, 2012) - DISA Mission Partner Conference -- Research In Motion (RIM) (NASDAQ:RIMM)(TSX:RIM) today announced DoD-wide approval for the use of BlackBerry® 7 smartphones. Working with U.S. Army and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) sponsors and partners, BlackBerry 7 smartphones have undergone successful testing through Army labs leading to a subsequent listing on DISA's Unified Communications Approved Product List (UCAPL).

The approval allows all DoD customers to use the following BlackBerry 7 smartphones on DoD networks:

• BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930 (touch screen with keyboard)
• BlackBerry Torch 9810 (touch screen with slide out keyboard)
• BlackBerry Torch 9850 and 9860 (full screen touch screen)
• BlackBerry Curve 9360 (keyboard)

"The Army introduced a wide range of new apps and capabilities for their BlackBerry users last year, and these new BlackBerry 7 smartphones will now enable Army users, and all DoD users, to experience an even greater level of performance on new smartphones that include features such as voice activated universal search, Near Field Communications, Augmented Reality, and Social Feeds 2.0 just to name a few," said Scott Totzke, SVP, BlackBerry Security Group at RIM. "RIM's unwavering focus on security and RIM's achievement of key security certifications including FIPS 140-2 validation and Common Criteria EAL4+ accreditation continue to be very important to many of our DoD and enterprise customers, but leveraging the full power of BlackBerry smartphones is also important as it helps them realize the full potential of their investment in the BlackBerry platform."

For more information about BlackBerry 7 smartphones and features, please visit: www.blackberry.com/bb7.

While some companies may be moving away from corporate BlackBerry devices, and RIM has released applications for Android and iOS , the US Government has decided that BlackBerry is still their top choice. RIM's focus has been, and likely always will be having a secure platform in which the users data is extremely safe. While the US Government has allowed some users to go with Android or iOS, they still support 12,000 BlackBerry users, and that is what they prefer.

"We appreciate RIM's focus on security, which is paramount for government use," said Casey Coleman, the chief information officer at the General Services Administration.

Continued support is always a good sign, we know RIM has many new things coming down the line, many of which will continue to spark interest in users. With BlackBerry 10 on the horizon, and the launch of BlackBerry PlayBook OS 2.0 just behind us, we hope more businesses will continue to see the benefits of having BlackBerry devices in the hands of their productive employees.

Source: Washington Post 

BlackBerry Users Can Now Send Encrypted and Verified Email

RPost has extended its Registered Email services to create a new class of mobile messaging, bringing the security of BlackBerry email to any recipient regardless of where they access their email. This new RPost app for BlackBerry is tightly integrated into the native ‘compose email’ function, permitting users to scroll up one position to ‘Send Registered’ email messages.

The sender can choose to:

• Encrypt to any recipient address regardless of how the recipient accesses their email, with proof of compliance with HIPAA and other data privacy mandates;
• Track email opening with an official time-stamp of the content opened;
• Send documents specially formatted to obtain recipient electronic signatures on the attached document;
• Include a client reference code with the message. RPost will later embed this code into the Registered Receipt emails and usage reports; and
• Receive auditable and time-stamped proof of content in replies to the BlackBerry sender's email, serving as records of responses to offers, messages, and negotiations.

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In the United States, as I'm sure it is in many parts of the world, we take our right to privacy very seriously. Our Fourth Amendment to our Constitution protects us from unreasonable search and seizure, and we defend that right so vehemently that the simple act of moving a computer mouse to wake a computer from a screen saver mode has been ruled an illegal search.

Strangely though, your mobile device may not have those same protections. In California, a court ruling in January gave officers the go-ahead to search your Smartphone without a warrant. The court based its ruling on existing law and case precedents, but those never considered the possibility of a private citizen carrying a mobile computer with direct connections to the most private parts of their lives on it.

Realizing that the laws in the state needed a bit of an update, the California legislature stepped in to pass a bill, SB 914, to require a duly authorized search warrant be issued before a person's mobile device could be searched. It passed in the state's Assembly and Senate chambers by a 70-0 and 32-4 margin, respectively. However, in mid-October, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed the bill stating that he felt the courts and not the legislature were "better suited to resolve the complex and case-specific issues..."

But even if you did manage to remove from your BlackBerry all details of that Panda smuggling operation you masterminded last summer, government officials aren't the only ones who could be snooping around your Smartphone. Friends, family, co-workers, girlfriends, boyfriends and even parents sometimes get a little nosy. So, inspired by this Wired.com article, here's how to keep your BlackBerry Smartphone secure.

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If you've just gotten a new BlackBerry then probably one of the most important to-do's on your list is protecting your device. Now I'm not talking about cases or screen protectors but about your personal information. Some of us just go about our business and don't always realize how much of our "stuff" is out there for everyone to see especially when we hand off our device to friends, family and little ones too young to understand just exactly what they've been given.

Personally, I have a tendency to be absent-minded when it comes to my Torch. I think I must leave my device all over the place at work or at home. However, I've never been a fan of the native feature which locks down everything. That's why I decided to give iLocker by SKYANT a try so I could personally control which native or third party applications are accessible at any given moment.

Read Full Review

Last week RIM announced that the BlackBerry PlayBook was granted FIPS 140-2 certification. This makes the PlayBook the first tablet to be approved for use by US federal government employees, which is a pretty big thing. It seems this is opening up doors in other places as well, as Russia is now looking into banning Apple's iPad for government use, and looking into the PlayBook as a more secure alternative.

The reports suggest the government is still deciding whether it will use devices from RIM, tablets running Google Inc.’s Android software or a new device created by a Russian agency using “a variety of security systems.” The implementation of a more secure system will help “speed up workflow among agencies” according to the report.

If true, the backing of the Russian government could prove to be another victory for RIM as it seeks to use its reputation of prioritizing security technology to position the BlackBerry PlayBook as the tablet of choice for businesses and governments, the way it originally marketed its BlackBerry smartphones.

Indeed, it was RIM’s security technology which helped the company’s BlackBerry devices to become the gold standard of mobile devices for government agencies around the world, including the Canadian government and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation.

If this goes through, it could go a long way towards regaining some of that market share that Research in Motion has lost in recent months, as Russia would possibly be the first of many governments to adopt the tablet for use. BlackBerry has long been known for putting security at the top of the priority list, and the PlayBook has been no exception to this standard which may prove to be a big advantage.

Discuss more in the forums

Source: RBK Daily via Financial Post

Last week we posted an article how the PlayBook automatically transfers your saved Wi-Fi networks from your BlackBerry the first time it Bridges.  I first noticed this when I got my PlayBook home and saw it attached to my Guest 'g' Network by itself.  My first thought was "WOW how cool is this!!"  I hit up come colleagues on BBM and had them check their saved Wi-Fi networks and we noticed that all our saved Wi-Fi networks from our BlackBerry Smartphone's had copied over to the PlayBook.

Wait, is this good or bad?

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This year's Pwn2Own event is well underway in Vancouver. The yearly event takes the best White hat hackers and challenges them to exploit computers and operating systems so that their vulnerabilities may be shared with the owners of those operating systems in an effort to make them more secure. In previous years, Research In Motion has stood its ground but this year results are now in for BlackBerry. The news however, isn't the best. This year, a BlackBerry Torch running OS 6.0.0.246 was successfully exploited using the long awaited WebKit browser. The browser exploit allowed Vincenzo Iozzo, Willem Pinckaers and Ralf Philipp Weinmann to gain access to all contact information as well as the image database. Research In Motion's director of security, Adrian Stone was on hand to confirm the exploit and made the following statements about it:

“It happens. It’s not what you want but there’s no such thing as zero code defects,” in addition to that statement Stone also advised that RIM's security team would analyze the date to see if it was a true zero-day flaw and if so, then a fix would created and then rolled out to carrier partners so that end-users get it. This situation of course assumes that it hasn't already been fixed in a later revised OS. But that could not be confirmed at the time.

Given that Research In Motion doesn't use any underlying security in its OS such as ASLR or DEP and others do, it is something that Research In Motion is looking to be adding at a later time. When asked about the security within BlackBerry devices Vicenzo Izzo noted “The advantage for BlackBerry is the obscurity. It makes it a bit harder to attack a system if you don’t have documentation and information," which leads into the fact that WebKit while Open Source, is an Apple derived product with lots of detailed information about it being available to all.

Source: ZDNet

Know thy permissions; Know thy BlackBerry.

Just about every time you install a new application on your BlackBerry, you're asked to set permissions. Long ago, Research In Motion decided that only the BlackBerry end user would be able to decide how apps would interact with the smartphone. Unlike some other device creators, there are no code signing or other workarounds to granting the permissions. Only the user or the BES administrator can choose to allow permissions.

Without certain permissions, your new app will not run on your BlackBerry. But what permissions should be granted? Should you give Trusted Application status to your newly installed program? Should I give it access to my personal data? These are important questions to ask.

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As I was crawling the Web for BlackBerry news, I ended up at our sister site, Android Central. I stumbled on this interesting article called ”What does 'open' mean to us?”, which discusses the state of open source and its relation to the Android platform. Being a loyal Linux hacker, I simply could not let this slip away – someone going by the name eric6052 commented on the article at Android Central saying, and I quote, ”I would like to see a similar article on all the SPE sites”. I shall make the first step for CrackBerry. So, what does 'open' mean to us?

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With all the news these days of about encryption on the BlackBerry solution there is a great amount of misunderstood reporting in the media on just what is at stake between RIM and governments of the world. I'm not going to pretend that this article will be the ultimate encryption thesis it's my hope to explain things plainly and clearly.

As global terrorism rages, governments are trying to keep up with the perpetrators and the BlackBerry has become the symbol of all that is secure. Many government agencies themselves use BlackBerry devices for their security, so it's understandable that they would be concerned with encrypted communications of terrorist BlackBerry devices. Various countries have been in the news lately demanding that RIM give them the keys to read all the BlackBerry traffic within their countries. Many have put down deadlines if RIM does not comply they will close down all BlackBerry traffic inside that country. That potentially wouldn't be a problem is these demand were being made by Madagascar but the countries are India and United Arab Emirates.

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The United Arab Emirates is calling BlackBerry devices a security risk. The UAE telecom regulator said "BlackBerry operates beyond the jurisdiction of national legislation" since the data services for the device all take place offshore and stated usage may have "serious social, judicial and national security repercussions". Since all BlackBerry data is relayed through servers that are not operated directly by local mobile carriers, their operation is said to be outside the national security legislation from 2007. There have been no comments from either the UAE or RIM directly, so the future of BlackBerry devices there is still unknown for the time being.

Source: Yahoo!

iLock keeps prying eyes, and quick thumbs, from accessing private information on your BlackBerry. It’s a quirky relationship between you, the world and your BlackBerry. You want to use your BlackBerry to gain access and learn about everything in the world. You also don’t want the world to gain access and learn about everything on your BlackBerry. Is it selfish? No, you just want to make sure personal information remains personal. As it stands, the current BlackBerry security options seem to take the ’all or nothing’ type of approach; either you block access to the BlackBerry entirely or leave it open for the world to see. What if you wanted to show off an image or video from your last family vacation? Passing your BlackBerry onto another will allow them access to private emails, notes and other documents. Choosing to hide these items doesn’t always work either.

iLock goes one step further into providing personalized security. This application has the ability to set a security password for each individual application, folder, file or module. You can show your boss your report from your last business trip, without him seeing what else you got up to (wink wink). Let’s check it out.

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Even though BlackBerry is renowned around the world for it's in built security it is limited to what, exactly you can secure. Most security functions to the end user do not go beyond encrypting the SDCard and making sure a singular password is set to block all access to the device. So what happens if you just want to block certain aspects of your BlackBerry smartphone? Say your messages or your media content. You're out of luck in that area unless you look towards a third party application such as iLock from MMMOOO. While the application is not new, it has been recently updated with some more features which make the app more secure then ever before.

• Lock/Hidden the file and folder, the newly rocking function in iLock
• Enable add an app Manually if it was not in pre-refreshed list
• Uses a new & texture icon, looks nice in different style themes
• Fixed some little bugs, more stable & smooth

Version 1.1 is now available for purchase, only costing $3.99 but in case you are wanting to give it a spin before spending your hard earned cash you can check out the free 7 day trial that is available.

• For More Information And To Check Out The Free Trial Click Here>>

This week at WES 2010, Cellcrypt introduced secure mobile to mobile calling.  Cellcrypt offers BlackBerry users a fully secure private telephone conversation.  This product uses strong End-to-End encryption and is FIPS 140-2 US Government certified, which is the same security rating offered by the BlackBerry Enterprise Server. This is an ideal solution for corporate business travelers or anyone concerned that their phone conversations may be of interest to 3rd party groups or government agencies.

This product announcement comes on the heels of a December 2009 published "codebook" that cracks the GSM encryption.  This pre-computed codebook is freely available online and requires no more than a laptop and a programmable antenna.

Press Release 

Encryption Application Enables Convenient, Cost-effective, and Secure Conversations for Government Agencies and Businesses

WES 2010, Orlando, Fl., April 27, 2010 ─ Cellcrypt (www.cellcrypt.com), the leading provider of secure mobile voice calling, today announced the availability of its high-strength government-grade encryption application for mobile devices, including BlackBerry® smartphones, on both T-Mobile’s secure cellular network and T-Mobile’s Wi-Fi® HotSpots across the globe. With encryption accredited to the FIPS 140-2 standard (approved by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology), a government official or traveling executive can use their T-Mobile Wi-Fi-enabled BlackBerry smartphone to make classified or confidential calls and be assured that the content of their call is protected to government-level standards.

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