The Hacking Economy

BlackBerry, Samsung team up to boost Enterprise security

BlackBerry to bring new security services to iOS and Android
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BlackBerry to bring new security services to iOS and Android

BlackBerry and Samsung announced on Thursday that they are joining forces to improve Android security with the BlackBerry Enterprise Service 12 server, which manages enterprise mobile devices running on Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry's own mobile operating system.

The partnership with Samsung aims to win over even more enterprise customers. Beginning in early 2015, Samsung will integrate BlackBerry's BES12 end-to-end encryption service into its own KNOX software, which adds another security layer to Android devices.

John Chen, chief executive officer of BlackBerry.
Tomohiro Ohsumi | Bloomberg | Getty Images

"BlackBerry has developed a very close partnership with Samsung and we're committed to deepening the interaction between our engineering and product development teams for the long term," John Sims, BlackBerry's president of global enterprise services, said in a statement.

"It is a natural progression in our path to providing our customers with more alternatives to meet their evolving mobile needs. Samsung KNOX offers a number of hardware and software security features and our partnership allows us to tightly integrate these capabilities with BES12," he added.

The BES12 server also brings a new VPN authentication service to Blackberry, iOS and Android devices aimed at eliminating the need to tote around key fobs that generate random numerical codes, according to the company.

BlackBerry also announced on Thursday a service called WorkLife, which will be offered by a company's mobile carrier and allows employees to manage telecommunications expenses, including voice, text messages and data incurred on their mobile devices. WorkLife works on iPhones, Android and BlackBerry 10 smartphones.