BlackBerry has toughened the government version of its company-hosted SecuSuite encrypted voice and text capabilities to meet demanding U.S. standards.
The company said Thursday that SecuSuite for Government is now the only voice solution that meets the U.S. National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) standard that supports iOS, Android and BlackBerry 10 smartphones and tablets. NIAP develops protection profiles, evaluation methodologies and policies for testing technologies to ensure they meet the Common Criteria for securing data. Certificates issued by authorities are recognized by a number of countries including Canada.
Unlike the enterprise version, which is hosted by BlackBerry, the government version can run from on-premise government servers, as well as hosted in a certified third-party data centre or a data centre trusted by the client.
SecuSuite for Government is also BlackBerry’s first secure mobile voice product listed on both the NIAP Product Compliant List (PCL) and the U.S. National Security Agency’s Commercial Solutions for Classified Program (CSfC) List. Companies on the NSA list meet standards that enable commercial products to be used in layered solutions protecting classified U.S. data.
“Call tapping is happening at an alarming rate,” Alex Thurber, BlackBerry’s senior vice-president and general manager of mobility solutions. “In today’s connected world, restricting agency employees to only exchange classified information from the desk phone is no longer a viable option, but it could be the new reality if governments don’t start securing calls and texts from mobile devices. Our governments need to be mobile and they need their conversations secure.”
SecuSuite enables the secure end-to-end encryption of telephone calls and text messages across all cellular and WiFi networks. All encryption and authentication processes run seamlessly and securely in the background, says the company, with no impact on battery life or performance.
Also available in an enterprise version hosted on BlackBerry [TSX:BB] infrastructure, SecuSuite is already in use by more than 20 governments, the company said.
The government version of the suite joins a number of solutions BlackBerry has tailored for the extra security regulations of the public sector. BlackBerry says it has over 80 security certificates for its products.