BlackBerry maker Research In Motion today announced that the U.S Department of Defense has given department-wide approval for the use of BlackBerry 7 smartphones on its networks. The struggling smartphone maker said that by working with U.S. Army and Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) sponsors and partners, BlackBerry 7 smartphones have undergone successful testing through Army labs leading to a subsequent listing on DISA’s Unified Communications Approved Product List (UCAPL).
The approval allows all Department of Defense customers to use the following BlackBerry 7 smartphones on its networks:
• BlackBerry Bold 9900 and 9930
• BlackBerry Torch 9810
• BlackBerry Torch 9850 and 9860
• BlackBerry Curve 9360
“The Army introduced a wide range of new apps and capabilities for their BlackBerry users last year, and these new BlackBerry 7 smartphones will now enable Army users, and all DoD users, to experience an even greater level of performance on new smartphones that include features such as voice activated universal search, Near Field Communications, Augmented Reality, and Social Feeds 2.0 just to name a few,” said Scott Totzke, SVP, BlackBerry Security Group at RIM.
[Related Reading: Failure of the BlackBerry PlayBook Means CIOs Need to Plan for an Apple World]
In February, 2012 the company announced that mobile devices running BlackBerry 7 and BlackBerry 7.1 Operating Systems were been awarded FIPS (Federal Information Processing Standard) 140-2 certification by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC). In addition to FIPS 140-2 certification, the BlackBerry 7 OS has received Common Criteria EAL4+ certification.
FIPS 140-2 is recognized by the U.S. and Canadian governments and is required under the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 (FISMA)
“RIM’s unwavering focus on security and RIM’s achievement of key security certifications including FIPS 140-2 validation and Common Criteria EAL4+ accreditation continue to be very important to many of our DoD and enterprise customers, but leveraging the full power of BlackBerry smartphones is also important as it helps them realize the full potential of their investment in the BlackBerry platform.”
Suggested Reading: Why the BlackBerry PlayBook Shows Us The Future of Enterprise Security — Especially if it Fails
