A new BBM Enterprise feature gives you a leg up on your competition, while protecting you and your customers, partners, and clients from costly data security breaches. BBM Enterprise (formerly known as BBM Protected) is available for Android, iOS, and BlackBerry 10 devices.
(Originally posted on Biz blog by Jessica Malik)
The average cost per data breach for a firm has now exceeded $6 million USD, according to the Ponemon Institute. Yet, most enterprises still overlook secure mobile messaging, exposing their data to all sorts of vulnerabilities. Despite this gap in their IT armor, enterprises continue to let employees adopt consumer instant messaging apps, aka BYOS (Bring Your Own Service), for speed and productivity. Cleaning up after a data breach can obliterate all those productivity gains, though. Now is the time for IT admins to take back control of their mobile and instant messaging to secure how all data is exchanged both inside the enterprise and, more importantly, with their customers and partners.
BBM Enterprise offers an enterprise-grade secure instant messaging service with all the features of a consumer IM app, the hardening of on-premise security together with the convenience of a cloud service. All messages are encrypted using keys generated by the communicating mobile devices themselves. This BlackBerry innovation effectively prevents ‘man in the middle’ hacker attacks, providing greater security than competing encryption schemes, and earning BBM Enterprise FIPS 140-2 validation by the U.S. Department of Defense.
With the announcement this week, organizations using BBM Enterprise can now let their employees chat securely using BBM Enterprise to non-BBM Enterprise workers at other companies, or customers. The result: instant federation and bulletproof security for messaging communications with partners outside of your enterprise.
Not only is there no additional annual cost, but this security extends seamlessly across companies without any complex or costly-to-setup server federation. If you are a lawyer in a law firm or investment advisor within a financial institution, BBM Enterprise now enables you to use enterprise-grade secure instant messaging to chat with your clients with no laborious IT setup.
Here’s how it works:
End-User Experience
At enterprises that have deployed BBM Enterprise, employees can initiate an encrypted BBM Enterprise conversation with other BBM Enterprise users inside or outside of the organization. However, they can also initiate BBM Enterprise conversations with non-BBM Enterprise users within or outside their organization whenever security is paramount. You’ll then see one of the two screens above, depending on whether its your or their organization that actually owns BBM Enterprise. All the “non-Protected” party requires is the free BBM app downloaded from iOS App Store, Google Play or BlackBerry World.
Once the BBM Enterprise connection is established with the non-BBM Enterprise user, either user can initiate a secure chat environment at any time. Connect with your high-profile clients in a trusted environment, while offering a differentiator from your competitors with this new feature.
IT Admin Experience
Best of all, this feature is easy to deploy and manage. Simply turn on using IT policies. Similarly, the Enterprise Identity by BlackBerry Admin Console – a service provided for user and entitlement management when BBM Enterprise subscriptions are purchased – makes BBM Enterprise cross-platform management seamless, putting the control back in the hands of the IT administrator. BlackBerry OS, BlackBerry 10, iPhone, and Android devices are managed in this single, cloud-based console. There’s no new hardware to purchase, no new servers to install, and no new OS updates are required.
Ready to deploy BBM Enterprise?
Experience the productivity and competitive advantages of an enterprise-grade mobile IM platform that delivers, while mitigating the vulnerability of data within your organization and for your customers.
Visit BBM Enterprise or contact your BlackBerry Account Manager for a free 30-Day trial.