Secure smartphones are all the rage today. The ongoing saga of Edward Snowden and the undeniable evidence that the U.S. and other governments are regularly spying on both foreigners and their own citizens has led to a great deal of concern about privacy and government and corporate data security.
One at least partial solution to the problem of hacking and electronic eavesdropping is the secure smartphone. The cryptophone industry has exploded in the last year or two, with four companies releasing new secure devices in the last six months or so. One of the most well-received secure smartphones is the Blackberry-based Secusmart. The model has been extremely popular in Europe, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel is known to use one.
Secusmart Blackberry a hot item
Sales of the 2,000-euro ($2,770) Secusmart are booming and management is looking to make hay while the sun is shining. “Voice encryption used to be a niche that only intelligence services were interested in,” Secusmart Chief Executive Officer Hans-Christoph Quelle said. “That niche is widening now. We want to look at private customers, but we definitely have to go after companies this year.”
Secusmart’s security technology can be retrofitted onto a number of recent BlackBerry models including the Z10. The security technology is based on a microSD card, which acts as a separate hard drive for private information. This separate hard drive cannot be accessed even if hackers infiltrate the operating system.
Hoox M2 Cryptophone
Bull SA began selling their Hoox m2 cryptophone at the first of the year. The nearly 2,000-euro secure smartphone provides cutting-edge security for Web access and e-mail.
Franck Greverie, Bull’s executive vice president of security solutions emphasized the breadth of the customer base for the device. “Customers include government agencies, financial companies, law firms and large enterprises, especially those with teams involved in international activities,” he said
“We’ve been getting 50 calls a week,” Greverie continued, though he refused to discuss orders. “Bankers or lawyers will be proud to pull it out of their pocket and put it on the table to show it off at dinner.”
