Research In Motion Ltd (BBRY): Did BlackBerry Get PRISM-ed in U.K.?

Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) has been proudly staking its entire company reputation on the quality of its security measures for its various handsets and BlackBerry operating system. While BlackBerry is an endangered OS species in the consumer world, it has been a very strong player in the enterprise market, especially as the market has become increasingly mobile over the last few years. Government agencies and top government contractors have relied on BlackBerry to store and encrypt sensitive data and have strong security measures that would make the phones near-impossible to hack and breach.

Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) has been state-of-the-art in wireless and mobile security, which has kept it relevant in mobile even as its consumer market share has dwindled to at least fourth place among OSs behind Android by Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG), iOS by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Windows Phone by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT). Where do you think this company would be if it did not have the security reputation? Where do you think it will be if anyone ever knew that security was ever actually breached to a significant scale?

We might just find out soon enough, as a report has bubbled up just recently that suggests that the Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) BlackBerry operating system might have actually been breached as far as 2009 by U.K. intelligence, which claimed to have monitored phone calls and e-mails sent from BlackBerry devices owned by many delegates who attended a couple of G20 summits in London. British intelligence claimed through some documents that were revealed as part of the collection leaked by NSA PRISM leaker Edward Snowden that it has successfully monitored BlackBerry smartphone activity of foreign delegates and summit attendees during the two summit meetings  and was able to gather top-secret and highly sensitive information.

There is no confirmation that the report is true in the first place, and there is no indication as of yet whether Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY)  was PRISM-ed, where its servers were breached without its knowledge, or whether BlackBerry helped British intelligence by giving it access to its servers so it could gather data. The report said that the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) – which is one known for years as being impenetrable – was accessed in 2009, despite BlackBerry admitting at one time that it did build a dedicated server in India for the express purpose of allowing government monitoring.

What could this mean for Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) if this report is credible?

BlackBerry has made what little living it has on its security measures, and to have any report surface of a server breach just might reduce BlackBerry to an OS no different from any other one – that perhaps wireless communications may ultimately be impossible to truly secure. Although BlackBerry is not making much ground in the consumer smartphone market (though reports are that Q10 sales are very good), to have its enterprise security questioned may certainly impact the company’s overall reputation among consumers over the longer term – unless this report is the only one that comes out to be true. Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBY) is likely hoping for that.

What are your thoughts about this? Would this report change your thoughts about Research In Motion Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY)? Give us your feedback in the comments section below.

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