BlackBerry has finally commented on the Dutch Police’s claim of breaking its encryption, claiming it as nothing but a false report.
To placate their customers, the Canadian phone maker gave out some details as to how their encryption is still intact and the privacy and security of the devices is as it was before.
“There have been recent media reports that police-affiliated groups in the Netherlands have been able to ‘crack’ the encryption protecting e-mails and other data that are stored on BlackBerry devices,” wrote the company in a blog post.
Is BlackBerry users’ data security at stake?
For those who are unaware of this matter, there have been reports claiming that Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) have attested to the fact that even when data that is available on Blackberry devices that are encrypted, they are prone to attacks such as hacking and other organized criminal activities.
Tuscha Essed, a press officer from the Netherlands Forensic Institute, said they are “capable of obtaining encrypted data from BlackBerry PGP devices.“.
BB devices that come with PGP encryptions can be bought quite easily via online stores. These devices are meant for those people who are looking for a safe way of communication and are generally not known for their fancy specs.
Through the encryption, the user is able to keep his emails, texts and files more secured by adding a password.
The devices have no security for the leaks that may be caused due to third party applications. When asked to comment on this, BlackBerry said, “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 also added in the end that there is no chance of a backdoor from which the device password could be retrieved, as the password is not stored anywhere. So, as long as you follow the security procedures that are recommended by the company, you are good to go.
