BlackBerry to carry DOD security

The company that makes BlackBerry handheld devices is working with the National Security Agency to meet the Defense Department's needs for the increased security of the Secure/Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) standard, the company said.

The announcement from Research In Motion (RIM) Ltd. that its BlackBerry products will support the standard comes as the Defense Department is nearing the release of its new wireless security policy, possibly as soon as this week.

S/MIME allows for secure communications among individuals in different organizations running different e-mail systems, RIM officials said.

The standard augments the security and authentication of e-mail messages even after they leave an organization's e-mail system and uses public-key cryptography to provide writer-to-reader security, including confidentiality, message integrity and sender authentication, company officials said.

RIM's BlackBerry already supports Triple Data Encryption Standard e-mail protection and Federal Information Processing Standard 140-1 certification.

"RIM will now be able to meet the Department of Defense requirement for S/MIME and [public-key infrastructure] support," said Don Morrison, RIM's chief operating officer.

The company said it will provide NSA with a customized version of BlackBerry software with S/MIME support. The agency will deploy the software on wireless handhelds used by various government organizations, including DOD.