BlackBerry CEO Cryptically On Assistance To Canadian Police

BlackBerry CEO John Chen has responded at a news that BlackBerry Canadian police would have the encryption key to the encrypted BlackBerry messages could decrypt. Chen does not want to confirm or deny the report.

Last week Vice Magazine came out with a report showing that Canadian police were able to decrypt encrypted BlackBerry messages. At that BlackBerry did not respond, but last night there appeared a blog posting by Chen . In it he argues that tech companies must meet reasonable court orders to give investigators access to data. He also repeated his earlier statement that it is objectionable as companies put their reputation over the public interest.

He then briefly discusses the case of the Canadian police, but would not say whether the Canadian police indeed received the encryption key. Chen said the only thing is that BlackBerry has held in this case to its own principles. "For BlackBerry, there is a balance of what is right, such as helping in the detection of criminals, and prevent government violate the privacy of citizens. We have found this balance, even though governments have pressured us to our ethical principles change."

BlackBerry Devices Vulnerable FREAK Leak

BlackBerry users has warned that a large number of devices vulnerable by FREAK flaw in SSL / TLS is that early March was unveiled. Through the vulnerability, an attacker who is between a target and the Internet is in some cases the encryption of the encrypted connection to downgrade to a weak encryption to crack then that and to see the encrypted traffic.

According BlackBerry are different versions of the operating system, the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES), BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) and other software vulnerable. The manufacturer says that the investigation into the leak is still running, but there's already decided to publish the vulnerable systems and software. An update is not yet available, but BlackBerry says that an attacker would first have to place between the user and the Internet to carry out an attack.

Default settings, common configurations, and general "best practices" would also help to prevent a successful attack.Furthermore, the problem would be solved if users send data that already are encrypted before they are sent over SSL. For example, in the case of S / MIME or PGP. When the BlackBerry FREAK leak will patch is unknown. This week came Apple and Microsoft already with updates.