BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) smartphones might not be as secure and safe as most believe. Quebec police and RCMP officers in a police investigation successfully tracked criminals using BlackBerry devices with encrypting technology, according to Ctv News.
BlackBerry marketing strategy to blame
On Thursday, the RCMP stated that around 31 people were arrested after investigators applied a technique to intercept more than one million private PIN to PIN message. BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) has been urging its customers to consider PIN to PIN message as “scrambled” rather than “encrypted”.
Christopher Parsons, a fellow at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab said that it is a problem with the marketing of BlackBerry about its devices to customers.
“It’s a very difficult security posture and probably one that most users … don’t fully understand.”
Parsons said that the most of the retail customers are under the impression that their BlackBerry set meets the same security standard as BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB)’s deployed in the big corporations and the U.S. government, despite the fact that these phone do not operate on the same high-level security servers.
BBM to get more secure
RCMP did not clarify whether they received any sort of help from the company to track the miscreants and refrained from commenting due to an “ongoing police investigation.” The Canadian smartphone maker has posted on its website that it will access the personal information of some users in response to court orders, warrants and “other lawful requests or legal processes.”
Previously, a task force in Los Angeles traced BBM instant messages that exposed an organization that distributed cocaine across the U.S. and Europe, as per a report in Los Angeles Times. In 2011, BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) had already stated that it worked in collaboration with the police during an investigation regarding how BBM was used by protestors to stage the London riots.
Independent technology analyst Carmi Levy believes that such instances do not really prove the vulnerability of BlackBerry’s core technology and also do not violate the security of PIN messaging.
The Canadian company is already working on plans to launch a more advanced security system for its business customers this year. According to BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB), through the technology, employees can convey messages safely and securely both inside and outside of the workplace with an extraordinary level of end-to-end security.
