Blackberry Security Issues

UAE has decided to block the key features and services of Blackberry phones which include Blackberry Messenger, Email and Web Browsers from October 11 until they found a sensible solution on these. UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has decided on pursuing to ban the said features because of security concerns. In line with this TRA said in a statement “Certain BlackBerry services allow users to act without any legal accountability, causing judicial, social and national security concerns.”

After the UAE statement regarding blocking of some key features of Blackberry its neighboring country Saudi Arabia has ordered its local telecommunications company to block messaging features of Blackberry this month. Other countries, which include India and the Gulf state of Bahrain, have also raised concerns about BlackBerry messaging features, but have not decided to block them outright.

Blackberry’s encrypted data could be used to send any illegal or unlawful messages which can be a threat to the state. Authorities demanded to Research in Motion (RIM), the maker of Blackberry, an access to the said encrypted messages sent thru the device. However RIM has failed to comply with the UAE and other Gulf countries’ requirements.

Due to this decision, millions of users from UAE, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf region will be affected. The main concern here is the effect of this resolution to the Blackberry users and the rage it may cause among them once the directive has took place. Also, pursuance of this order would greatly affect the business enterprises particularly in Dubai, wherein a major businesses use Blackberry in most of their transactions due to its high level of security.

In connection to finding solutions to the security issues the UAE is asking Blackberry to put up a server there and Blackberry has offered other solutions than that. UAE regulator said “BlackBerry appears to be compliant in similar regulatory environments of other countries, which makes non-compliance in the UAE both disappointing and of great concern.”

Two major telecommunications company in UAE named Etisalat and Du have released a statement that they would comply with the command of the UAE authorities and they are finding other alternatives for their Blackberry customers. As for the Blackberry users there can still be some chances that the UAE authorities and RIM to resolve the security issues prior to the implementation date of the command.

By: Barbie Barbo

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