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Dutch police able to crack BlackBerry encryption

Friday 15 January 2016 10:51 CET | News

The Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI) has confirmed that Dutch police have been able to crack the encryption to recover even previously deleted e-mails.

The Dutch police accomplished the feat thanks to a forensic software program developed by mobile data technology company Cellebrite, a subsidiary of the Japanese company Sun Corp.

Although the NFI is the only law enforcement organization that has confirmed its ability to break PGP encryption on the BlackBerry, legal documents from a court case in Ontario, Canada, indicate that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) are also able to extract deleted and encrypted e-mails from the devices.

Furthermore, the NFI documents indicate only that the agency was able to break the PGP encryption provided by a specific vendor, the Canadian company Phantom Secure. Other companies that offer PGP encryption tools for BlackBerry devices claim that their services are not affected by the vulnerability, regardless of how the NFI and RCMP managed to do it.


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Keywords: online fraud, online security, cyber security, fraud prevention, Dutch, BlackBerry encryption
Categories: Fraud & Financial Crime
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Countries: World
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Fraud & Financial Crime