BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) has come out to strongly refute claims that NFI, an institution affiliated to the Netherlands Police, hacked into one of its devices. In a blog post that was widely distributed, the company says that all the stories about the Dutch Police managing to crack one of its devices and actually read all the data contained in it are false.
Recently, the NFI, an institution that is related to the Netherlands Police, claimed that it had managed to decrypt the information that was contained in one of a BlackBerry device. The spokesperson of the institute, Tuscha Essed, said that his team had managed to crack into the device, obtained all the emails that the user had been exchanging and read all of them.
The institute claimed that it was possible for any other party to carefully exploit some security loopholes in the BlackBerry security system and decrypt the private data of users which, according to BlackBerry is completely secure. Although the motive of the NFI in cracking into the BlackBerry remains unclear, its claims caused a stir in the world. This was so since it has been widely believed that privacy and invincibility are the hallmarks of all BlackBerry devices.
But in a quick rejoinder, BlackBerry has said that NFI was simply lying and that it is not possible to decrypt any of its devices. According to the company, there are only three possible explanations to what may have happened. First, they say that NFI may have actually managed to access data on a BlackBerry device as a result of a user of the device being reckless with the security measures that the company has provided.
Second, the company says that NFI may have attempted to access data stored in one of the BlackBerry devices by exploiting weaknesses in third-party applications. Third-party applications can be easily exploited since their level of security cannot be assumed to match that of the devices on which they run.
Third, the company says that the NFI incident may have occurred as a result of a user of a BlackBerry device wilfully sharing personal information with the institution.
What the company has emphasised is that its devices remain completely secure. From its message, it is clear that the company is keen to maintain its privacy tag. It has even gone out of its way to emphasise that it does not store passwords and that it, even if it would have wanted to, it cannot hack into its own devices.
