BlackBerry PlayBook Wins Security Clearance From Feds

[InfoSec News <alerts () infosecnews org>]

http://www.informationweek.com/news/government/mobile/231002423

By Eric Zeman
InformationWeek
July 22, 2011

Score one for Research In Motion. While its PlayBook tablet may not have 
scored a home run with consumers (or developers), it just got a big 
thumbs up from the National Institute of Standards and Technology 
(NIST), which granted it FIPS certification. No other tablet, despite 
its success in the market, can lay claim to this title. The PlayBook 
stands alone with the FIPS chip on its shoulder.

FIPS certification is required for devices to be used by the federal 
government. This clears the PlayBook for use by government agencies, and 
now means the PlayBook meets RIM's own stringent security requirements 
for features such as native email and contact management. (Some have 
speculated that the reason the PlayBook shipped without support for PIM 
management was due to missing security tokens.)

"RIM is pleased to announce that the BlackBerry PlayBook is the first 
tablet approved under FIPS for use within the U.S. federal government," 
said Scott Totzke, senior vice president for BlackBerry security at 
Research In Motion, in a statement. "This certification demonstrates our 
continued commitment to meeting the needs of security-conscious 
organizations and enables the U.S. federal government to buy with 
confidence knowing that the PlayBook meets their computing policy 
requirements for protecting sensitive information."

While this is great news for RIM, it is unclear if this will actually 
spur government sales. The U.S. government may make use of BlackBerrys, 
which work well with the PlayBook, but the PlayBook still lags the iPad 
and Android-based tablets in basic functionality and features.

[...]


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