NATO picks BlackBerry's encrypted voice technology to secure calls

BlackBerry has announced that the NATO Communications and Information (NCI) Agency has awarded a contract for BlackBerry's SecuSUITE for Government to encrypt the conversations of its technology and cyber leaders wherever they communicate - in the workplace, at home or travelling abroad.

The NCI Agency helps NATO's 29 member-nations communicate securely and work together in smarter ways.

It acquires, deploys and defends communication systems for NATO's political decision-makers and command centres, working on the frontlines against cyber attacks.

Due to the classified nature of the information the NCI Agency handles, it is critical that all their communications remain secure, combatting any opportunity for a cybercriminal to electronically eavesdrop on conversations.

"As cybercriminals and state-sponsored actors become increasingly more sophisticated, we needed a highly secure way for our cyber leaders to have phone conversations with people inside and outside of our organisation regardless of where they are in the world," says NCI Agency general manager Kevin Scheid.

"BlackBerry's voice encryption technology helps solve this challenge and strengthens our cyber defence strategy.

BlackBerry Secusmart senior vice president Dr Christoph Erdmann says, "Eavesdropping on calls is one of the easiest ways to gain access to private information.

"We are proud that the NCI Agency has put its trust in BlackBerry's software to secure their voice communication.

BlackBerry's SecuSUITE for Government supports Android and iOS smartphones and tablets and can be installed on-premise, in a data center, or in the cloud.

Use cases for the solution include:

• Secure conferencing: encrypts conversations between a secure conference bridge and a SecuSUITE for Government-enabled device.

• Secure landing: encrypts mobile devices to a landline within a network.

• Break-in: protects any communication between a mobile or landline on the user's home network to a SecuSUITE for Government-enabled mobile device.

• Break-out: secures mobile devices to the employee's home network and from there to external mobile or landlines through PSTN extension.

SecuSUITE' for Government has been evaluated and certified to be compliant with the Common Criteria protection profile for VOIP applications and SIP servers.

It has also earned a NIAP certification and has been placed on the NSA Commercial Solutions for Classified Program (CSfC) component list of products certified for us on classified systems.