Installation guide

BlackBerry Enterprise Solution Security

Controlling BlackBerry devices 40

Protecting the BlackBerry device against malware

Java-based BlackBerry devices are designed to provide an open platform for third-party wireless enterprise

application development. Using BlackBerry MDS Studio™ and the BlackBerry Java Development Environment

(JDE), the BlackBerry Enterprise Solution enables software developers to create third-party applications for

BlackBerry devices. BlackBerry JDE developers can create more powerful, sophisticated applications than are

possible with standard Java™ 2 Platform Micro Edition (J2ME™). A third-party BlackBerry application can

perform the following tasks on the BlackBerry device:

• communicate and share persistent storage with other third-party BlackBerry applications

• interact with native BlackBerry applications

• access user data such as calendar appointments, email messages, and contacts

Third-party applications that are designed with malicious intent to cause harm to computer systems (for

example, viruses, trojans, worms and spyware) are commonly known, collectively, as malware. By default, Java-

based BlackBerry devices can download any third-party application wirelessly using the BlackBerry Browser. You

can also send third-party applications to BlackBerry devices wirelessly, and install them on the BlackBerry

devices automatically. The BlackBerry Enterprise Solution includes tools designed to enable you to control the

manual or automatic installation of third-party applications and limit the access of untrusted applications to the

BlackBerry device and its resources to help prevent malware attacks on the BlackBerry device.

Containing malware on the BlackBerry device

On desktop computers, malware prevention requires processes that both detect and contain malware attacks.

Detection is the process of determining whether or not a program is malware. Effective malware detection

requires a comprehensive and frequently-updated local database or a constant connection to a similarly

qualified online database. While desktop computers might have access to these databases, current mobile

devices do not have enough storage space for a malware database and cannot guarantee a constant connection

to the Internet.

The BlackBerry Enterprise Solution is designed to use code signing, IT policies, and application control policies to

contain malware by controlling third-party application access to the BlackBerry device resources and

applications. These containment methods are designed to prevent malware that might gain access to the

BlackBerry device from causing damage to the BlackBerry device, its applications and its data, or to the

corporate network.