The new Blackberry DTEK60 - A double-edged sword of security
26.10.2016
Translation: machine translated
Blackberry has reinvented itself. The DTEK60 is supposed to be the most secure smartphone in the world and yet offer the convenience of normal Android distributions. A test shows: The phone is not for security purists, but it is a strong signal in favour of security.
I've been staring at the screen of the Blackberry DTEK60 for 51 minutes now. I can't work with it because the device is currently optimising the fifth of six apps after the second upgrade of the operating system. All this updating has drained 30% of my battery, so the first recommendation is to fully charge the battery before making any settings: Fully charge the battery. Because at the end of all the updates, installations and settings, 39% battery remains.
The promise: security and convenience
Blackberry now wants to change that. The strategy of jumping on the Secure Phone bandwagon is no coincidence, as the company has been known to be in trouble at least since the slump in popularity following the market launch of the iPhone in 2007 and the mass redundancies of 2,000 employees in 2011. However, this does not mean that BlackberryLimited is endeavouring in vain. Because secure mobile phones are necessary.
The DTEK60 promises a lot of security:
- Built-in password manager
- Better handling when granting authorisations
- Encrypted hard drive
- Monitoring of apps on the device and warning if they do something unusual, such as taking unsolicited pictures and videos
- Promise to respond quickly to security vulnerabilities and quickly deploy patches
In addition, BlackBerry also promises that security is simple.
First worries with Basic Setup
The BlackBerry DTEK60 runs Android. The developers at BlackBerry have made very few changes to the stock Android released by Google. This may not only be for aesthetic reasons. A few changes to the stock Android can drastically shorten the response time when an update needs to be pushed. This can be the case if there is a security vulnerability such as Stagefright, which has not yet been patched on many Android devices.
Excellent security rating? We can change that
The device has an app called DTEK. It measures the safety standard of the current setup. Mine shows me "Fair" during the app tour. This means that my DTEK60 is "moderately secure, approximately". Shortly afterwards, i.e. after the tour, the app takes a second look at my system and says that the security is excellent.
With the data slingshots installed, I check DTEK, the app, again. The rating is still "Excellent". Strange. A second look reveals what the DTEK app is monitoring:
The principle of the smallest possible authorisations in practice
The security features of the Android version from BlackBerry become exciting and, above all, obvious during use. The software blocks all access from everything to everything. The mail app is not allowed to access the picture gallery by default, nor is it allowed to access contacts. These authorisations must be granted manually and can be withdrawn from the app at any time, regardless of how much sense this makes in the context of the device's operation.
This is where security and convenience come up against each other. Of course I want WhatsApp to be able to access my contacts, because the last time I memorised a phone number was about ten years ago. I can still remember the number today, but I don't really know why I should write a WhatsApp message to the guy from back then.
Secure unified communication as a questionable sales argument
The DTEK Android environment also boasts that unified communications are possible. The BlackBerry Hub - just called Hub in the system - pulls together all incoming and outgoing communication strands of the phone and combines them on one screen.
Definitely an Android phone
Under the bonnet, the DTEK60 is neither second-rate nor spectacular. It is a solid mobile that plays in the midfield. To all appearances, it makes no attempt to become an iPhone killer. And it doesn't play in the third league of Android phones either.
The handling is straightforward, with the exception of authorisations, which have to be granted separately for each app. Just Android. Shrug your shoulders.
The response time of the device is solid. I never had to wait for anything and as unobtrusive as the design of the device is, the handling is equally unobtrusive. I was neither surprised nor angry. The DTEK60 simply works and does its job well. I don't expect more from a smartphone.
Conclusion and answers to the questions from the beginning
Apps from the Play Store, meanwhile, offer better encryption - or at least explicitly mentioned encryption - than any app I found on the DTEK60:
The security features are purely cosmetic, with the exception of the enforced principle of least privilege - i.e. all authorisations must be granted manually. Even an absurdly large number of installed data traps and privacy nightmares for testing purposes have not stopped the DTEK app from complacently claiming that the level of security is "excellent".
New locking options are nowhere to be found. PIN code, fingerprint or pattern. That's it. This is not particularly convenient, nor is the handling of app privileges, as all the information is missing and I spent about three minutes trying to display the names of the people involved in the chat group in WhatsApp.
Overall, the DTEK60 can be described roughly as follows: "Mol mol, isch es Smartphone. That's how you do it."
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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