Tag: blackberry

Software supply chain cyberattacks are up

Posted on May 11, 2023 by - News

Hacker typing on a laptop

A new study from Juniper Research has found that the total cost of software supply chain cyberattacks to businesses will exceed $80.6 billion globally by 2026, up from $45.8 billion in 2023.

This growth of 76 per cent reflects increasing risks from absent software supply chain security processes, and the rising complexity of software supply chains overall.

The new study, Vulnerable Software Supply Chains Are a Multi-billion Dollar Problem, highlights the need for greater emphasis on the software elements of the supply chain as a critical security vulnerability.

The study analysed how both shifts in wider cybersecurity processes, and the mindset around the management of the software supply chain are needed to address these risks.

Underperforming Cylance affected Blackberry

Posted on July 16, 2020 by - News

Blackberry took a hammering due to its poorly performing software services arm Cylance according to GlobalData

The company declineed 16 percent in Q1 2020, compared to Q4 2019, due to revenue and gross margin drops in its struggling software services segment, the revenues of which declined by around 12 percent.

Cylance, a part of the software services segment, remained subdued throughout the period, even as cybersecurity demand surged due to increasing work-from-home policies during the pandemic, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

GDPR helping cyber criminals

Posted on May 26, 2020 by - News

While GDPR has been important in making sure that companies look after customer’s data it is providing an opportunity for cyber criminals to further their own agenda.

BlackBerry has found a new trend in the last couple of years with ransomware groups using GDPR to their advantage, threatening to alert data regulators to the fact that victims had been breached, adding additional pressure on the targets to cave to their demands.

Adam Bangle, Vice President EMEA at BlackBerry  said that two years ago, few could have predicted that a regulation put in place to make data safer could turn into a tool for blackmail.

US firms are at the centre of cybersecurity buy out blitz

Posted on September 12, 2019 by - News

Beancounters at GlobalData have added up some numbers and concluded that American companies remained the most active investors in the cybersecurity technology space.

Of the top five acquirers in terms of the number of acquisitions, the top three were headquartered in the US, with the UK-based Sophos and Canadian firm Blackberry also featuring among the top five.

The three American companies, Symantec, Palo Alto Networks and Proofpoint, undertook seven acquisitions each in the cybersecurity space during 2014–2018, while Sophos acquired six companies and Blackberry acquired five companies during the period.

BlackBerry offers security packs

Posted on January 8, 2019 by - News, Products

BlackBerry announced it is scaling its BlackBerry Secure technology and licensing strategy to enable its partners to rapidly bring-to-market safe and secure IoT devices.

According to a recent survey commissioned by the company, approximately 80 per cent of consumers in the US, UK and Canada do not trust their current Internet-connected devices to secure their data and privacy. Additionally, when asked about future purchases, respondents said they were more likely to choose a product or do business with a company that had a strong reputation for data security and privacy.

BlackBerry and Check Point team up

Posted on September 13, 2018 by - News

banner_220x220have entered a global ISV (Independent Software Vendor) partnership.

The move is the first of its kind for Check Point and includes joint go-to-market planning and selling of Check Point’s market-leading mobile threat defence solution, SandBlast Mobile, along with BlackBerry UEM and BlackBerry Dynamics.

BlackBerry’s teams will be fully trained on the Check Point SandBlast Mobile solution to resell and serve as a single point of contact for professional services and support.

With organisations across the globe adopting mobility solutions to improve productivity and deliver digital transformation projects, mobile security is often overlooked despite cyber attacks getting more sophisticated. Recent Check Point research found that 94 percent of security professionals doubt their company can prevent a breach of employees’ mobile devices.

Mark Wilson, Chief Marketing Officer, BlackBerry said:. “Far too often we hear about enterprises employing a specific security mobility strategy as an afterthought when it has the potential to be the weakest link. BlackBerry and Check Point share a DNA that revolves around cybersecurity and with each company bringing recognised solutions to the table, the partnership is a natural fit and a great addition to our ISV ecosystem.”

Check Point Software Mobile Security Solutions VP Jeremy Kaye said: “Enterprises need to use consistent, comprehensive threat prevention across their mobile fleets to keep mobile devices from being the weak point in their security defenses. With Check Point and BlackBerry joining forces to prevent mobile cyberattacks in the enterprise, we are providing the best-in-class mobile threat prevention technology that every business needs.”

Check Point’s SandBlast Mobile is BlackBerry Dynamics enabled and integrated with BlackBerry Unified Endpoint Management (UEM). The Dynamics platform provides the foundation for secure enterprise mobility by offering an advanced, mature, and tested container for mobile apps and email while delivering a comprehensive endpoint-to-endpoint approach to security. Enhanced with the SandBlast Mobile, the solution keeps business assets and sensitive data on all devices safe and secure from cyber-attacks.

SandBlast Mobile 3.0 prevents mobile phishing attacks, while also identifying all malicious network traffic to and from the device to help keep data and employees safe. It allows users to run apps downloaded to mobile devices in a virtual, cloud-based environment where behaviour is analysed and then approved or flagged as malicious. Other features include the ability to provide on-device network protection by inspecting and controlling network traffic to and from the device, blocking phishing attacks on all apps and browsers, and disabling communications with malicious command and control servers. Check Point’s solution, available now on BlackBerry’s Marketplace, allows businesses to stay ahead of new and emerging threats by extending its network security capabilities to mobile devices.

BlackBerry’s ISV ecosystem has seen significant momentum, growing 25 per cent in the last year. ISV partners have access to the BlackBerry Development Platform, an enterprise-grade toolset which enables developers to build  customised mobility solutions for every use case.

BlackBerry adds crisis communications channel

Posted on December 6, 2017 by - News

Merry-CrisisNo stranger to a crisis itself, the former maker of phones with tiny keyboards, Blackberry has added a crisis communications channel specialisation for key partners.

The outfit is trying to elbow its way into the security and developed a crisis communication offering for those customers that need to get messages out to staff and the public quickly in times of natural disasters, terrorist and cyber-attacks.

The Crisis Communications Specialisation is built on BlackBerry’s AtHoc platform, which enables the sharing of information across an organisation, ranging from sharing work and operational details up to vital details about a major incident, and should appeal to partners that work with customers that have critical life-safety requirements.

Richard McLeod, ‎global vice president – enterprise software channels at BlackBerry, said that in times of crisis it was vital that messages could get out to people providing information and safety advice.

BlackBerry’s mobile background is useful in a situation when email is down, and there is a need for other means of communicating with people.

He said that as well as selling crisis communication tools some partners would also be in a position to earn extra revenues from integrating other aspects, including sirens, radios and speakers.

Candidates will need to be a global partner with robust cloud and security and consultative skills to be invited.

Cloud Distribution expands into Blackberry security

Posted on November 17, 2017 by - News

Samsung Browses BlackberryCloud Distribution has developed its relationship with BlackBerry to take on board the vendor’s latest security products.

The distributor has been flogging BlackBerry Workspaces for three years but will now add the vendor’s Secure platform to the portfolio.

Blackberry is getting out of the mobile hardware business and into software and last month stepped up its cybersecurity services to protect privacy and data assets and also help customers gain GDPR compliance.

Cloud Distribution, sales director Adam Davison said that his outfit was building on its Workspaces relationship with BlackBerry.

He added that it would be using its Altitude Marketing programme to make sure partners were given support around the Secure platform.

“There is a full schedule of joint marketing campaigns and initiatives underway to help partners stimulate interest and accelerate pipeline growth”,  he said.

Richard McLeod, vice president of global enterprise software channels at BlackBerry, said that the expanded relationship was all part of its commitment to the channel and efforts to reach out to more resellers.

“The expanded relationship with Cloud Distribution signifies our continued investment in strategic partnerships with industry leaders, enabling us to enhance our channel partner ecosystem and provide business customers with the best possible experience within their respective market”, he said.

“Cloud Distribution’s security specialists have proven they can address challenges in today’s complex and sophisticated business environments”, he added.

 

Blackberry boss under pressure to tart up name

Posted on October 25, 2017 by - News

blackberry tartAs Blackberry turned around by shifting from hardware to software its CEO John Chen said he was under pressure to change the company name.

Talking to the assembled throngs at BlackBerry’s fourth security conference in London, Chen said that this shift in strategy has started to gain traction in the market.

“People have asked me to change the name, from BlackBerry to something else. People have asked me to do more advertising [as well], but the thing is our consistency, and our team going out there day after day and getting our message out there, is starting to pay off.

“A year ago, everyone wanted to talk about the next keyboard phones. They wanted to talk about the phones, the speed, the web browsing capability and all these sorts of things which was great – we’re very proud of our heritage.

“We continue to license it to other people who want to build phones, but we really need to get out of the phone business and leave the hardware business, and move onto the software side of the equation.

“The narrative has changed. For BlackBerry to get back on a positive track… it’s very important for [these people] to start talking about the value-add that we provide. I love talking about our heritage, but that only goes so far.”

The vendor’s name will still appear on handsets through licensing deals with hardware firms.

The BlackBerry Motion will ship in the UK early next month and is manufactured by Chinese giant TCL. Chen said he expects the vendor’s hardware revenue to be completely erased next year, with income coming only in the form of royalties paid for its branding.

The move away from hardware, he added, led people to question why he didn’t change the company’s name to better reflect the shift in focus.

“Virtually all the analysts, rightfully so, had written things that were negative”,  he said. “But after three and a half years we really have turned around the perception and the understanding of our company.

The move away from hardware to software has led to a shift in BlackBerry’s go-to-market, with more channel partners needed to deploy the solutions to end users.

The firm has seen its new partner intake rise 75 percent this year compared with 2016.

Chen said that BlackBerry has built out its direct sales teams for highly regulated markets such as financial and government, but that partners predominately serve other verticals.

BlackBerry shows off its security escape route

Posted on July 24, 2015 by - News

Andy-Dufresne-with-arms-wide-openTroubled smartphone maker BlackBerry revealed its cunning plan to escape doom by becoming a security company.

BlackBerry showed off a suite of security products that safeguard everything from medical gear to Hollywood movie scripts.

BlackBerry whose smartphone market share has dwindled, is trying become a little more software-focused. BlackBerry’s Chief Executive John Chen said in an interview just before an event in New York said that he was satisfied with the progress on the turnaround so far.

“I laid out the $500 million software revenue target and I’m still comfortable with that commitment for this fiscal year, it looks good,” he said.

The full turnaround he has been promising could take longer than initially promised. Going by his early timetable, BlackBerry would now be about six months away from seeing real traction from its overhaul.

Chen said he now sees it taking about 12 to 18 months for investors to reap rewards.

Analysts have been sceptical about the company’s ability to steadily and sustainably grow software revenue, even as revenues from its smartphone unit and legacy system access fees decline.

“We’re patiently building the product pipeline and the sales channel,” he said.

“There is still much work to do, I’d love for everything to move faster, but I caution people to be a bit patient because we can’t rebound in a very short period of time, no company can. We are doing all the right things for the long term and the company is out of financial trouble.”

The outfit does have a few problems as it had not set itself up as software delivery company and did not have a decent channel.

BlackBerry’s Chief Operating Officer Marty Beard, adding that measures taken in the last year have improved BlackBerry’s ability to identify and target potential clients.

Blackberry calls in the Cisco kid

Posted on July 14, 2015 by - Moving People, News

hqdefault (2)Troubled smartphone maker BlackBerry has named former Cisco Kid Carl Wiese as head of global sales – a move which is expected to shake-up the company’s channel.

Wiese has spent the past 12 years at Cisco, first heading advanced technology sales and later its collaboration-product sales efforts. Those teams focus on aspects such as security and web conferencing, areas that BlackBerry is trying to expand within.

Wiese, who has previously worked with Apple, Avaya, Lucent and Texas Instruments, will be responsible for driving its go-to-market strategy and global sales efforts.

BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen said in a statement said that Wiese had extensive experience in enterprise software and emerging technology solutions, which will be instrumental as BlackBerry moves toward stabilising revenue. Or in English, making money again.

The move comes less than three weeks after BlackBerry posted weaker-than-expected sales growth from its software business in the first quarter.

Chen, who set a software revenue target of $500 million for the current fiscal year, has built his turnaround plan around a software growth strategy, hoping sales from device-management software and fledgling areas like the Internet of

Things can replace BlackBerry’s traditional service fee structure and falling revenue from smartphone sales.

BlackBerry declined to comment on whether Wiese’s appointment, which followed his successor John Sims’ exit was tied to weaker-than-expected software revenue growth. But it is expected that he will look to the channel to improve the company’s bottom line.

BlackBerry is also widely expected to debut a new Android-based smartphone this year in an attempt to boost its hardware sales.

Redmond wants a Blackberry slice

Posted on May 25, 2015 by - News

blackberry tartThe dark satanic rumour mill is churning out a hell on earth yarns claiming that Microsoft is close to buying up a slice of the canadian telecommunications company BlackBerry.

A few other tech companies like Xiaomi, Lenovo and Huawei are also amongst those interested in buying the outfit but Microsoft has been wining and dining a few investment firms to assess their chances of taking over BlackBerry.

Its plan is to upgrade its intensity in the business mobile solution segment and its patent portfolio in the Internet of Vehicles (IoV), as well as mobile platform and communications sectors.

The Chinese smartphone manufacturers are mainly intended to invest in BlackBerry so that they can improve their brand visibility across US and European business sectors.

So far it is all rumour and speculation but BlackBerry has frequently been tipped to be ready for buying out before and it has never happened.  However sources in the Redmond lair have admitted that the stuffed head of Blackberry would look nice on its CEO’s wall.

BlackBerry said recently that it will  lay off number of employments across the globe and will merge its device software, hardware and applications business. It also indicated that it was “changing assets to profit” by development opportunities and accomplish benefit over all regions of business.

So far that involves scaling down its mobile phone division, which might mean Microsoft  will have to move fast if it there is going to be anything left of Blackberry.

Blackberry puts security on IoT

Posted on April 22, 2015 by - News

Samsung Browses BlackberryTelephone outfit BlackBerry is launching a new certificate service that will help bring the security level it offers on smartphones to the Internet of Things

Certicom, a subsidiary of BlackBerry, announced a new offering that it contends will secure millions of devices, expected to be part of the Internet of Stuff (IoT).

It said that it had already won a contract in Britain to issue certificates for the smart meter initiative there with more than 104 million smart meters and home energy management devices.

The service will make it much easier for companies rolling out such devices to authenticate and secure them, the company said.

In another move BlackBerry also outlined a plan to expand its research and development efforts on innovation and improvement in computer security.

Dubbed the BlackBerry Centre for High Assurance Computing Excellence (CHACE) said that it will to develop tools and techniques that deliver a far higher level of protection than is currently available

 

BlackBerry makes a profit

Posted on March 27, 2015 by - News

Samsung Browses BlackberryIt seems that BlackBerry has turned the corner as it reported a quarterly profit today – results that sent its share price up by over five percent.

Revenues however fell to $550 million for its quarter, down from $793 million in the same period last year. Net profit was £28 million, compared to a loss in the same quarter last year of $148 million.

So what’s BlackBerry doing right? It seems that CEO John Chen is keeping a close eye on expenses but its revenue from software rose 20 percent in the quarter, accounting for $67 million in revenues.

Despite its formerly impregnable position as the handheld of choice for the corporate market, sales of its more up to date models don’t appear to be particularly good.

BlackBerry is attempting to change its model from hardware and services to software.

Wall Street analysts hailed the profit figure but fretted about the revenue, which the company had estimated would be $786 million.

GCHQ builds a very British supercomputer

Posted on March 17, 2015 by - News

logoBritish spooks have built themselves a new supercomputer made by connecting Blackberry Pis all made in Britain.

GCHQ, the UK equivalent of the NSA, has created a 66 Raspberry Pi cluster called the Bramble for “educational” purposes. It is not clear what those education purposes are, but you are unlikely to need a supercomputer to make a dry martini, or do your seven times table.

The spooks had an internal competition to invent something and three, unnamed, GCHQ technologists decided that other Pi clusters were too ad-hoc. They set created a cluster that could be reproduced as a standard architecture to create a commodity cluster.

The basic unit of the cluster is a set of eight networked Pis, called an “OctaPi” – one thing you have to admit is that the Raspberry Pi. The size of the OctaPi was dictated by the need to make the unit reasonable from the point of view of size, power consumption, cooling and so on. The Pis are driven by power over ethernet (PoE) to reduce the wiring and each one has an LED display.

Each OctaPi can be used standalone or hooked up to make a bigger cluster. In the case of the Bramble a total of eight OctaPis makes the cluster 64 processors strong.

There are two head control nodes, which couple the cluster to the outside world. Each head node has one Pi, a wired and WiFi connection, realtime clock, a touch screen and a camera.

All of the Pis are model Bs, but changing to a B2 would make the cluster a lot more powerful and cost about the same.

Rather than just adopt a standard cluster application like Hadoop, OctaPi’s creators decided to develop their own. The software to manage the cluster is now based on Node.js, Bootstrap and Angular.

The Bramble was shown off at the recent Big Bang Fair held in Birmingham, UK, which was aimed at getting children interested in science and engineering.

According to the press release: “The initial aim for the cluster was as a teaching tool for GCHQ’s software engineering community… The ultimate aim is to use the OctaPi concept in schools to help teach efficient and effective programming. Watch this space for more details!”