HONG KONG, 25 JUNE 2009—Canada-based mobile device maker Research In Motion (RIM) has announced that BlackBerry Enterprise Server 5.0 has been awarded Common Criteria Evaluation Assurance Level 4+ (EAL4+) certification.
Common Criteria is an international standard for evaluating security products. Widely respected for its extensive and comprehensive evaluation by an independent third party, EAL4+ accreditation means the design, software development methodology and security mechanisms of BlackBerry Enterprise Server had been examined thoroughly and deemed to be sufficiently strong in those areas for enterprise-grade application.
“Security remains one of the most important considerations when enterprises deploy or expand the use of mobile devices. Regulated industries such as those in the financial, insurance, investments, retail, legal, health care and public sectors cannot afford to deploy anything that could compromise their data security or prevent them from meeting regulatory compliance requirements,” said Jack Gold, president and principal analyst of technology analyst firm J. Gold Associates.
“Choosing mobile platforms that have obtained a variety of internationally recognised security certifications is a requirement to enable companies to achieve the highest levels of inherent security and to allow them to feel confident about deploying such solutions throughout their organisations,” Gold said.
The Common Criteria is an international standard for validating that IT products meet specific security requirements. The BlackBerry Enterprise Server software has been independently evaluated by a third-party Common Criteria evaluation facility and meets the security criteria for EAL 4+. This evaluation assurance level is accepted under the Common Criteria Recognition Arrangement (CCRA) by 26 countries, including India, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore in Asia.
The BlackBerry Enterprise Solution has been certified by the Fraunhofer Institute SIT, and has been approved for use under the CAPS programme in the UK. The solution has also had several FIPS-140 validations for its embedded encryption module.
