Police Say They Can Crack BlackBerry PGP Encrypted Email (sophos.com)

schwit1 writes: Police in two countries have claimed that they can read encrypted data from BlackBerry devices that are being marketed as having "military-grade security." The story originally broke when Dutch website Misdaadnieuws (Crime News) published documents from the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), a Dutch law enforcement agency, stating that police were able to access deleted messages and read encrypted emails on so-called BlackBerry PGP devices. A representative from NFI confirmed that "we are capable of obtaining encrypted data from BlackBerry PGP devices," according to a report from Motherboard. On Tuesday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) also told Motherboard they can crack encrypted messages on PGP BlackBerrys.

Comments

Key is forensics.

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't cracking PGP. This came from the forensics department. By far the most likely scenario is that they're able to recover either the key from memory/flash, or the unencrypted plaintext.

Also, people still use Blackberrys?

I doubt it

[ooloorie]

They almost certainly can't "crack PGP"; they may, however, have found flaws in the way Blackberry uses PGP. Or perhaps they are simply referring to the fact that they can intercept data as it is being decrypted on the device.

Re:Beware of BlackBerry shills

[drew_kime]

2. Law enforcement says "don't use Blackberry because we cracked it". Stress on the "don't use Blackberry" part ?

That's what seems odd to me. Why would police disclose that they're able to do this? Isn't this the kind of capability you'd want to keep under wraps? Almost seems like they want people to avoid BB. I wonder why.

Re:Military grade

[MightyYar]

Military grade just means it won't change for 30 years or so. :)