Understanding Blackberry Encryption
- in Blackberry
Blackberry devices are known for the high data security that they provide. This is achieved through encryption and decryption of data, such that even when intercepted, it will be of no use to the interceptor because it will be unreadable and meaningless. To have a better understanding of how it works, a more detailed and technical explanation is given below.
How PGP works
Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) is mainly for encrypting messages. PGP encrypted BlackBerry uses an AES-256 bit and 4096 bit PGP public and session keys on your Blackberry devices to do the encryption. The procedure used in making the encryption process a success is described below.
1. Compression
The plain text message that you compose is first compressed. The importance of compressing is to save transmission time as well as to strengthen the encryption security. It does so by reducing the patterns found in a plain text, which cryptanalysis would otherwise take advantage of to try to decrypt.
2. Encryption of text
A random but unique one-time 4096-bit key is then created by PGP, which is used to encrypt the email message via AES – 256 algorithm, creating a cipher text. The encrypted text will appear as random letters, numbers, and symbols.
3. Key encryption
After encryption of the data, the session key is also encrypted with the public key of the recipient. The encrypted keys and text are combined into one message before sending the message so that they are both sent as an encrypted package. PGP will encrypt the session key with the public key of the intended recipient. A unique phantom email address is used to store this public key.
4. Phantom Secure Offshore Network
Once you click on send, your Blackberry will make a secure connection that is AES-256 encrypted, to the Phantom Secure offshore network. Your encrypted message will then be sent to an offshore network. Throughout the transmission, your message will remain encrypted.
The same channel will be used to deliver the message to the recipient, from the Phantom offshore network. The network does not save information passed through it. It also monitors any suspicious activities from any outsider.
5. Decryption
The PGP of the recipient will then use the pass-phrase and private key of the recipient to decrypt the temporary session key, which is in turn used to decrypt the encrypted text. A pass phrase is essentially a longer version of a password. Sending a message is possible only from a Public Key of an email to the private key that corresponds to it.