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How The NIAP-Certified SecuSUITE Can Make The Canadian and U.S. Governments More Secure

Telephone tapping (also wire tapping or wiretapping in American English) is the monitoring of telephone and Internet conversations by a third party, often by covert means. The wire tap received its name because, historically, the monitoring connection was an actual electrical tap on the telephone line. Legal wiretapping by a government agency is also called lawful interception. Passive wiretapping monitors or records the traffic, while active wiretapping alters or otherwise affects it.It might have received a fresh coat of paint with SS7’s vulnerabilities, but wiretapping has existed for nearly as long as the telephone has been around. Government agencies have long had to deal with surveillance. If you’re to defeat these attempts to eavesdrop on highly-sensitive calls, you need to implement voice encryption.

There’s the challenge. How do you accomplish that without impeding employees? How do you protect calls and text messages with partners, vendors, and contractors?

With our long history working with high-security agencies, BlackBerry understands these challenges – and we know how to overcome them. Detailed last month as part of our updated software portfolio, SecuSUITE for Government is our multi-platform solution for end to end encryption of voice calls and text messages. Designed to meet the strictest regulatory standards, it’s trusted by more than 20 governments around the globe.

SecuSUITE for Government has also achieved Common Criteria certification under the National Information Assurance Partnership (NIAP) program. This makes it the only NIAP-certified voice solution supporting iOS, Android, and BlackBerry 10 devices. It’s our first secure mobile voice product listed on both the NIAP Product Compliant List (PCL) and the NSA Commercial Solutions for Classified (CSfC) Components List.

SecuSUITE for Government is software-based, making it easy for your IT department to install and manage. Since it’s hosted on-premises, agencies have full control over the solution. And because it’s carrier-independent and works seamlessly across all networks, it’s highly reliable, allowing secure calls over carrier networks with the same performance as those over Wi-Fi.

As for employees, they can make secure calls and send secure text messages exactly as they ordinarily would. There’s no need to sacrifice call quality, performance, or usability for security. Also, there’s no need to switch devices or carry an extra phone. Once activated by their IT admin, employees can simply download the SecuSUITE app onto their preferred mobile device and start using the service. That’s all it takes.

Call tapping is a long-standing threat to government security – to prevent it, you need to encrypt your voice calls. Unfortunately, in today’s connected world, restricting agency employees to only exchange information from a desk phone is no longer a viable option. Governments need to be mobile.

You need to be able to keep conversations secure regardless of what device they happen on. With the newly NIAP-certified SecuSUITE for Government, you can do just that. Thanks to its excellent usability, strong encryption and easy installation and management, SecuSUITE for Government offers everything you need to keep your sensitive voice conversations BlackBerry Secure, no matter where and how they happen.

Christoph Erdmann

About Christoph Erdmann

Christoph Erdmann is the Senior Vice President for Secusmart, a subsidiary of BlackBerry.