[smoothrunnings]

For IPhone And Android Users, This Video Is Absolutely Horrifying | The Daily Feed | Minyanville.com


Is this real?

iPhone and Android phones aren't secure that anyone can grab the packages or hack into your device and steal the information. RIM on the other encrypts all data on their phones and over the air waves.

So is possible, sure it is, is it really news? No its just common knowledge! You get what you pay for.

[hornlovah]

My suggestion for a thread closure was not about the lack of civility; it was about the fact that this thread is just transparent trolling and bating. The article used for the trolling calls out BB by name as equally vulnerable to the same scan. I have already pointed out the passage.

I looked past the thread title and could not view the video, but the linked article is worth discussion if you are interested in mobile device security/privacy. Unlocked, unencrypted BlackBerrys are vulnerable to a wide range of data extraction software. Tonis pointed out that a passcode alone may not provide some BlackBerry users with the level of security they desire.

Again, I say that a general discussion on the relative merits of platform security seems appropriate enough, if not somewhat useless, but this isn't it. This is just an attempt to pick a fight. The fact that it has remained civil is beside the point.

Let�s reframe the discussion of this article into something more useful for BlackBerry owners then.

The following paragraph from the article is factually incorrect:

But those who've adopted unique and complicated, yet memorable, passwords are still not immune from security breaches. As scary as it sounds, one need only physical access to your mobile device -- be it a password-protected iPhone, Android, Windows Phone (MSFT), or BlackBerry (RIMM) -- to gain total control of your phone and the files within. As Swedish security firm Micro Systemation shows in a video, a lightweight program and a USB cable are all anyone needs to access your information.

From an Elcomsoft whitepaper released a couple of weeks ago (PDF file):

There are products on the market claiming the ability to perform
physical acquisition of BlackBerry smartphones [4]. Unfortunately, they cannot do this
on a device with an unknown device password and thus do not provide any benefit in
our threat model � if device password is known, an attacker can simply obtain
unencrypted device backup that contains password manager database(s).

In certain circumstances it is possible to recover BlackBerry device password using
encrypted media card from the device [5]. To the best of our knowledge, currently there
are no other ways to recover BlackBerry device password.

So here�s neat part for BlackBerry users : The article concludes with an assertion that you need to use an alphanumeric passcode to protect your phone. That is false. BlackBerry passcodes don�t need to be long or painful to enter. You just need to pick a device passcode that can�t be guessed in 10 or less tries. We can have a nuanced discussion about how a long passcode enables you to configure a stronger ECC key for data received while the phone is locked, but no one has been able to isolate and attack those keys, so that point is moot.

[dandbj13]

The article concludes with an assertion that you need to use an alphanumeric passcode to protect your phone. That is false. BlackBerry passcodes don�t need to be long or painful to enter. You just need to pick a device passcode that can�t be guessed in 10 or less tries.

Exactly the same on iOS.

[hornlovah]

Exactly the same on iOS.

Sigh. As I stated earlier, you can run password recovery programs against a locked iPhone, even a jailbroken 4s. There is no known method for extracting the password from a locked BlackBerry if media card encryption is configured properly. You can use a simple non-guessable passcode on your iPhone if you choose, but your confidential data can be compromised.

[T�nis]

Sigh. As I stated earlier, you can run password recovery programs against a locked iPhone, even a jailbroken 4s. There is no known method for extracting the password from a locked BlackBerry if media card encryption is configured properly. You can use a simple non-guessable passcode on your iPhone if you choose, but your confidential data can be compromised.

Thank you! That poster is obviously fried.