BlackBerry may not be the behemoth it once was but still it maintains relevance in certain circles where mobile security is given top priority. No wonder President Obama can’t live without his BlackBerry. The company often points out just how secure its devices are as opposed to the competition. Today in a blog post an executive details just how security is embedded into the very hardware of its devices.
Alex Manea, Manager of Security Services at BlackBerry, explains the concept of “Root of Trust.” In easy terms it is the strongest foundation for a tall building. The deeper Root of Trust is embedded into the system the more difficult it becomes to compromise.
All of BlackBerry’s hardware is signed to ensure that devices remain safe. Keys are injected at manufacturing and verified every time a device connects to BlackBerry’s network. These keys are also used to verify software of the device.
BB devices go through “a complex and unique series of checks” to ensure integrity of each component every single time they boot up no matter where they are in the world. It is also one of the reasons why BlackBerry phones take more time to load up than the competition.
For the average user this might not make much of a difference. These days conversations revolve around how many apps and services are available on a particular platform which is essentially the benchmark for most people when they’re out in the market to pick up a new device.
Since BlackBerry lacks majority of the apps and services available on iOS and Android its no surprise that it can’t compete in terms of sales.
It has tried to fix that to some extent by allowing Android apps to run securely on the BB OS platform, the Amazon Appstore even comes preinstalled on all new devices.
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