A FIPS 140-2 certificate applies to an exact module name, hardware, software, firmware and/or applet version. The FIPS 140-2 certification is issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. OK so what is a FIPS 140.2 certification? FIPS - Federal Information Processing Standard - this is the cryptographic gold standard for the US government and is the required standard for many government agencies on their computers and handheld devices.
If a police officer leaves this next generation police car in pursuit of a suspect and leaves the BlackBerry in the vehicle with the smart card reader in his pocket, the BlackBerry will lock up when the two pieces leave Bluetooth range. Well yes it does, but if I put my device down it could be anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes before the lock enables itself.
Some may ask "Isn't the BlackBerry password good enough? After 10 tries it wipes the device back to factory out-of-the-box doesn't it?" This is a product that would be used by the extremely sensitive crowd who can't risk the content stored on a BlackBerry be compromised. First factor presumably would be the device password and the second is your smart card inserted in the card reader and is witinh the 30-foot Bluetooth range of your BlackBerry smartphone. Essentially the Smart Card reader provides two-factor authentication to use your BlackBerry. We got a real world glimpse of the Smart Card reader in action just last week when Kevin posted the video inside the next generation police car powered by a BlackBerry PlayBook. If you have no idea what a FIPS certification on a Smart Card reader is, I'll give you a quick snapshot without putting you to sleep.
If you know what that means, you're excited at this good news and can now scroll down and click on the link to the NIST Computer Security Resource Center for more enterprise pr0n.
Lauderdale, FL.OK time to get your enterprise propeller hat on, the BlackBerry Smart Card reader has now been given FIPS 140-2 approval. The new BlackBerry Smart Card Reader is expected to be available in September and is being previewed this week at the LandWarNet 2009 Conference in Ft. Security these days is an essential component of any business, deploying smart card readers coupled with an enterprise server can give you the assurance you are looking for.
Support for a Wide Range of Smart Cards – the BlackBerry Smart Card Reader supports all ISO 7816 compliant smart cards and provides out of the box support for Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards, Common Access Cards (CAC) and Safenet 330 cards. More Complex Bluetooth Passwords – the previous BlackBerry Smart Card Reader model supported a randomly generated 8-digit numeric Bluetooth pairing PIN and this new model can now support more complex Bluetooth pairing PINs with both characters (symbols, letters, capital letters) and numbers. These settings add another layer of protection on top of the handset password and will also be enforcable for a secondary password* required to unlock encrypted data on the handset. Increased Security – when used with the BlackBerry® Enterprise Solution, the new BlackBerry Smart Card Reader offers additional security options that can be set by the IT administrator.Īdditional Content Protection – IT administrators can configure settings to allow handset passwords to work only if the BlackBerry Smart Card Reader is within range. It also features a larger display and backlighting for easier viewing, as well as power management features that can extend battery life between charges (900mAh integrated lithium ion battery). makes the peripheral more comfortable to wear.
The new BlackBerry Smart Card Reader features:Įnhanced Design – a sleeker design measuring only 3.98” x 2.4” x 0.57” and weighing only 2.26 oz.