If you have ever lost your phone, you know the feeling of frantic searching, as your mind races taking stock of just how many memories in photos you've just lost; how many contacts you have, and you can't recall the last time you backed up the phone.
IT administrators in corporate environments live with these anxieties constantly. It is just a matter of time before someone walks into their office saying they've just lost their phone, losing all those company e-mails, documents, business contacts and any corporate network access. The loss of this sensitive company information is not just a pain, but a real issue for companies - especially those companies that are in industries which are heavily regulated.
It would seem that IT administrators have an impossible job. They have to keep giving users mobile freedom to play Flappy Bird and still retain control over company data.
Over the years, I have been following the evolution of BlackBerry's enterprise solution. This is what BlackBerry is known for and this is BlackBerry's focus for the future. So I grabbed the opportunity to meet with Nader Henein, BlackBerry regional director of Advance Security Solutions, Advisory Division, to discuss BlackBerry's vision into enterprise security.
BlackBerry does not compromise
With the move towards smartphones, I asked how does a company balance the user's needs to play Flappy Birds and at the same time access sensitive company information? Henein explained: "We built BlackBerry on two fundamentals: no compromise on security and no compromise on user experience." This has led to the birth of BlackBerry's Enterprise Service, with its Balance feature.
Balance is the ability to separate personal life (games, apps, Internet, e-mails, etc) from work life (work apps, documents, contacts, e-mails, etc). It is like running two separates phones where data cannot be transferred between the two worlds. However, unlike competitors, BlackBerry has built its operating system with security in mind from the ground up, which allows for certain applications to straddle both worlds where it makes sense.
For example: competitors will have a work calendar and personal calendar. This makes it impractical to schedule a meeting, as both calendars have to be checked to confirm availability. BlackBerry's solution is to have the "busy" marked out in the calendars, so only one has to be checked. The same applies to the BlackBerry hub, where work mail and personal mail can be checked in one location, while still maintaining safety between the two worlds. You cannot copy info from work to personal and vice versa.
In other words, Balance allows the enterprise to control applications. Users still have the freedom to play games and not run the risk of having company info unknowingly sent to third party.
WhatsApp breaks POPI
When it comes to security, the scary catch phrase is "malware" - some rogue software that invades your phone, typically via an app. However, even legitimate applications can be an issue for a corporate who legally has to be POPI compliant (Protection of Personal Information Act). The POPI Act says no information may be saved on a third-party server without the user's consent. If you have some business contacts on your phone and you install a legitimate app like WhatsApp, you have just broken the POPI law. Why? WhatsApp is a legitimate application, and for WhatsApp to work it needs to take your address book and upload it to its servers so it can match your contact's phone numbers with its registered users.
This means a copy of your address book is now sitting on a third-party's server without your customer's consent. With BlackBerry's services, work contacts are separated from personal contacts so this scenario does not happen.
Wiping a BlackBerry is a time-bomb
BlackBerry's Enterprise Service is seven times larger than its nearest rival, with over 30 000 installs around the world; therefore, it has recognised that no one organisation is able to fully dictate to its staff which devices to use.
The bring your own device trend is here to stay. Therefore, as part of the BES, BlackBerry has a mobile device management (MDM) system that not only manages BlackBerry devices in the organisation, but also manages Android and iOS devices too. It will soon add Windows Mobile devices to the list.
Part of MDM is the ability to remotely wipe devices in the event that phones are lost or stolen, in order to protect the company's information. I asked Henein about how secure this 'wipe' feature is. Techies know that when you delete something from your computer, it is not deleted - just inaccessible. However, by running recovery software, a techie is able to retrieve the 'deleted' data. Can one do the same off a deleted BlackBerry phone? Henein confirmed that BlackBerry uses a method to ensure this is not possible. When the 'wipe' command is issued to the phone, the data is deleted on the hard drive and then it is overwritten multiple times with 0 and 1 combinations, so making a retrieval of the original file impossible.
BlackBerry has taken this one step further. With phones that are stolen, typically, the first thing the thief does is removes the SIM card and disconnects any network or mobile access. This allows the thief time to go through the phone undetected, as the phone is untraceable. BlackBerry has built in a time-bomb. In the event that the phone does not make contact with the authorised company network within a certain number of days, the phone will automatically reset itself to factory defaults, wiping all the information off the device. This is a setting the network administrator sets, which obviously can be overridden by him/her if someone is on holiday or on extended leave. This feature is also available to Android and iOS devices.
Encrypted instant messaging
Thinking of the Oscar Pistorius case, where WhatsApp messages were read out in court, I questioned Henein about BBM and its security. He replied that BlackBerry doesn't keep any messages, so even if the company is presented with a warrant to hand over correspondence, it can't. Even if the cellular operators try to keep any records, these would be highly encrypted.
BlackBerry is even expanding BBM to the enterprise, with the eBBM Suite. One of the initial products in the suite is BBM Protected, which provides enterprise messaging with end-to-end encryption of messages. It also has the ability to separate non-work BBM contacts, so again there is no cross-over of personal and work space.
In summary
Enterprise solutions is what BlackBerry does and does well. It has years of experience, with corporates and governments around the globe, which trust their systems and communications to BlackBerry's platform. While competitors have their own suite of products, these will always be bolt-on products to the underlying operating system and are currently fragmented.
I equate it to baking a cake. BlackBerry bakes the cake from scratch, incorporating all the ingredients to form the final secure and yummy product. Competitors are trying to add on to the cake after it has been cooked.
Personal data security protection is critical and will only continue to be more so as we move more of our lives online. Enterprises need to be conscious of how much personal data is being put at risk with unencrypted devices. And the risk faced by doing so.
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