BlackBerry Limited announced Monday that it has released a secure enterprise-messaging tool called BBM Protected to improve the security of its BBM messaging service.
The service is targeted toward governments, banks, law firms, healthcare providers and other organizations that have a high focus on security, according to PC Magazine.
Instead of providing one encryption key for a whole conversation, BBM Protected offers a key for each message.
The announcement of the feature comes as BlackBerry is facing competition in operating systems from rivals like Google's Android and Apple's iOS. The company has also been losing market share for years. BlackBerry is looking to fight improve its business by focusing less on consumers and more on customers from government agencies and big regulated industries with the new service, CNET reported.
"Security-conscious organizations are caught between a rock and a hard place today when it comes to secure IM," Jeffrey Gadway, head of product and brand marketing for BBM, said in a blog post. "Many consumer IM apps don't meet the security needs of IT while the enterprise IM apps deployed by IT leave end users seeking more utility and a better mobile experience. No secure IM apps have managed to meet the needs of both IT and end users - until now."
When two BBM Protected users first try to talk to each other, they will have to share a secret passphrase to confirm their identities and create the encryption keys for securing the conversation. BlackBerry said the new technology is the most secure mobile messaging app around, PC Magazine reported.
"BBM protected is the only secure mobile instant messaging app that uses a FIPS 140-2 validated cryptographic library," the company said. "BBM Protected enables employees to use the same app to securely message colleagues inside the company for work as they do to chat and share with family and friends outside the company."
The cryptographic library used by the service is a U.S. government computer security standard that sanctions cryptographic modules, CNET reported.
BBM Protected will be available for BlackBerry smartphones that run on the company's BlackBerry 6+ and BlackBerry 10 operating systems.
