BlackBerry has shrugged off its attempts to re-enter the business smartphone market and has partially reinvented itself as a provider of cybersecurity solutions for businesses. The company still produces smartphones and these are generally well-received within the businesses community, such as 2017’s KeyOne and Motion, and 2018’s Key2. However, these types of devices cannot compete on the scale of companies like Apple and Samsung.
In February 2016 BlackBerry purchased a company called Encryption Ltd., a UK based data security consultancy.The absorbed function within BlackBerry offers several cyber consultancy projects to companies. This includes going into organizations when they have suffered a data breach and offering a 360 degree audit. Thus includes running penetration test to see how wide the damage is within the organization.
Services also extend to training and advice in conducting risk assessments, as part of preventative measures so that the firm is better prepared to deal with another incident. The full service involves working through the stages of defense: prepare,protect, direct,respond and recover. The service can also provide BlackBerry’s own security software solutions.
According to Computer Weekly, John Chen, CEO at BlackBerry, regards cybersecurity has evolving from a technological consideration to a basic need. This is in the context of the cost of cyberattacks being projected to escalate from $400 billion to $6 trillion by 2021.
The security focus also extends to BlackBerry smartphones, which accounts for the popularity of the devices in some business sectors. In BlackBerry-branded devices, the Android OS security features are extended by BlackBerry Secure. For example, according to the company’s Alex Thurber: “BlackBerry locks down capabilities in the Android OS that could give attackers the opportunity to compromise your device, and the software provides a secure environment that makes it difficult for attackers to find vulnerabilities or perform attacks.”
BlackBerry has also shown success with Enterprise of Things (EoT) products. This includes the BlackBerry Spark platform, includes FIPS-validated, app-level, AES 256-bit encryption to ensure the data is protected on a device, across the mobile network and into a company’s infrastructure.”
