How to secure your BlackBerry

The BlackBerry is mostly a device that carries a lot of confidential information. So we do not anyone else to get access to that information. If I imagine that my BlackBerry is lost or stolen and everyone can just access my address book and grab Mike’s private phone number… You know what I mean.

It is crutial to our business to protect our data!

Below we will mention some procedures and methods to take care of your data and protect it from unauthorized access.

1. Device Passord

The first and most easiest way is to protect your BlackBerry is to enter a password for switching the BlackBerry on. Most of the time you will not need to enter this password as your BlackBerry is supposed to be “always on, always connected”. You can see a screenshot below on how to to so. You can set this up at “Options » Security Options » General Settings”.

2. Wipe Confidential Information In Case
This, of course, requires that you are doing backups of your BlackBerry regularily!

So if you come into a situation where your BlackBerry might go into hands you don’t want to get access to your confidential data you can just wipe out confidential information like tasks, contacts and calendar events. EmergencyWipe offer an easy and fast way to do so. It is always recommended to have this ability.

3. Content Encryption
The BlackBerry has advanced features to protect your confidential data. They are just deactivated by default. You enable the BlackBerry’s internal content encryption and so assure that your data is not saved in raw text on a device. Saving raw data on the device’s memory makes it very easy for crackers to read it once they obtained posession of your BlackBerry. You can set this up at “Options » Security Options » General Settings”:

4. Password Encryption
There is an already built-in password encryption / storage on your BlackBerry’s desktop called “Password Keeper”. It is a safe way to store passwords on your BlackBerry. You can only access this password store using a password you have set before. This is more secure way to store passwords than using MemoPad or EMails in your mailbox.

This is secure enough to store some passwords may be coded to a credit / atm card on the device. I would not write complete login data in there as it is always a good idea to be prepared if someone finally cracks the store.

5. SD-Card / Media Card Encryption
If you have installed a media card in your BlackBerry you might have also stored some data on it. In most cases your data is not that confidential as on the BlackBerry’s internal memory. Anyway, I don’t want other people to get access to the photos I took or the tracklogs I recorded (remember: those carry the locations where you went to). Alternatively, you can enable the encryption mode for your BlackBerry’s internal SD card to protect your data. This activation can be done at: “Options » Advanced Options » Media Card”. A screenshot of that settings screen can be found below.

We hope this guide helps a bit in securing and protecting your data. If there is anything we forgot, please feel free to use the comment function.

Related Articles:

• Secure ID System on BlackBerry Devices
• BlackBerry Security Guidelines?