The privacy-centric Blackphone has been rooted in just five minutes

This might raise a few chuckles over at BlackBerry. Recently both companies took swings at each other in a bid to call out each other’s claims on security offered by their mobile devices. BlackBerry describes itself as a market leader in security and boasts many certifications from government agencies around the globe to prove its point. On the other hand Blackphone, a joint venture between Geeksphone and Silent Circle, claims to offer high-end security at consumer level. The device was rooted in under five minutes at the BlackHat security conference this weekend.

Remember that “secure” Android phone that was looking to steal marketshare from BlackBerry? Yup, the Blackphone, which was called out by BlackBerry as “Consumer-Grade Privacy That’s Inadequate for Businesses.” And who’s CEO later took a jab back at BlackBerry saying the company was a “a betrayal of the objectives of privacy.” At the BlackHat security conference, @TeamAndIRC breached the Blackphone by rooting it within five minutes. The Blackphone’s bootloader did not need to be unlocked for adb to be enabled. Blackphone’s team was mocked, with the hacker claiming, “It is apparent no one ran CTS on this device.” However, one of the vulnerabilities has already been patched and the other only exploitable with direct user consent. Nevertheless, this only further proves you cannot add layers of security on top of an underlying platform with security vulnerabilities.