The lure of BlackBerry devices, aside from their uber comfortable QWERTY keyboards, stems from the level of security they provide.
With BlackBerry switching over to the Android ecosystem with its latest Priv, the Canadian company now makes the most secure Android handset on the market.
BlackBerry boasts on-the-dot monthly security patches for the Priv. On the first day of February, the company started delivering the Android's monthly security updates to unlocked Privs around the world.
Unfortunately, BlackBerry has found itself in a bit of a PR mess before just releasing its timely Priv patches. Reports of Dutch police breaking BlackBerry's encryption security measures spread online, prompting the company to release a statement.
"If such an information recovery did happen, access to this information from a BlackBerry device could be due to factors unrelated to how the BlackBerry device was designed," the company said.
According to the BBC, the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) allegedly successfully decrypted messages on a BlackBerry device. What specific BlackBerry device was supposedly cracked was not revealed, however.
That being said, BlackBerry does point out third-party applications and user behavior could lead to such an occurrence. In fact, modified units called PGP BlackBerrys are sold by third parties. These after-market BlackBerrys are said to add an extra layer of encryption to communications on the devices.
If it was indeed a modified BlackBerry that was decrypted, then that's out of BlackBerry's hands.
In this case though, it's BlackBerry's word versus a law enforcement agency's testimony.
As long as owners use a BlackBerry as it was intended straight out of the box and don't tinker with the Priv (or any other BlackBerry device for that matter), maybe government agencies won't be able to find any cracks to break into.
Photo: Maurizio Pesce | Flickr
