The enterprise management & security solution of Google, Android for work, offered to all employees with Android phones has now introduced a smartphone focused on security, the Blackphone 2 by Silent Circle.
Blackphone uses Silent Circle’s security-centric, Silent OS Android version as well as a number of security management apps. It even uses the proprietary VoIP protocol of the company ZRTP in order to build in voice encryption & SCIMP protocol in order to secure text messaging. Video calling & conferencing are encrypted as well & all of the communications go through their own network.
Since they use their own VoIP, encryption is end-to-end between only Silent Circle subscribers.
The Blackphone also has a Spaces feature which helps keep personal & company applications & data separately. IT managers can lock up or wipe everything remotely from the work side of this device in case it is stolen or lost.
It has its own security features as well which will allow IT to assign work profiles, permissions and policies. The devices are protected with the help of disk encryption, remote attestation and screen lock as well that can alert 3rd parties to any software changes.
Added to this is peer-to-peer encryption for all communication without the key storing. Selected messages can be automatically destroyed as well.
Blackphone 2 will be released in September and comes with additional processor cores, a large display, more storage, larger camera pixel count as well as other upgrades to its 1st generation model. It is going to support both Google Play & Google Mobile Services and will even offer expanded support for all existing MDM applications. It pushes Silent Circle in Android for Work’s ecosystem which now has forty device manufacturers, management providers and application developers.
Blackphone was initially designed & marketed for security-conscious individuals. Since then, three quarters of their sales revenue has comes from corporates.
Steven Myers
