By Navid Sobbi, forensic investigator and managing director of National Surveillance & Intelligence

 

A recent incident involving the BlackBerry of Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has once again brought the security of the popular business phone to the forefront of the public mind. Let’s dissect from a forensic viewpoint what actually happened.
 

While Mr Rudd was recuperating in hospital after undergoing heart surgery, his wife Therese Rein entered an incorrect password too many times and the device wiped itself.
 

BlackBerry phones are renowned for being highly secure, and this is one of the reasons why the operating system remains a popular choice within the government sector. In fact, people in high positions of power usually choose BlackBerry devices because of their high level of security.
 

No phone is 100 per cent secure but the user can take a number of precautions to protect their data from preying eyes and data loss.
 

This includes protecting their BlackBerry with a password.
 

Once the password has been activated, everything stored on the device is encrypted.
 

The downside to this feature is that securely deleted data is extremely difficult to retrieve.
 

We don’t know how Mrs Rein ultimately restored Mr Rudd’s messages, and also, if the device was used for personal or work use.
 

She might have used a backup copy saved by BlackBerry’s over the air service, BlackBerry Protect.
 

Data can also be retrieved by connecting the phone to forensic equipment that performs a full data extraction of the contents.
 

Loopholes in phone security continue to form, for example through the phone companies themselves.
 

As carriers keep updating software, the encryption on phones changes.
 

This means the updates from the manufacturers that allow phones to be decrypted can leave phones unprotected.
 

For users seeking the ultimate mobile security, private companies offer custom-made phones that look just like a Blackberry but have their own operating system with multiple layers of military grade encryption that change the session key every three seconds.
 

While countries such as France and the United Arab Emirates have banned BlackBerry phones and India is considering such a move, it is important to remember that BlackBerry services cannot be intercepted in a readable format and present a safe option for most users if password protection and encryption have been set up correctly.