Last February, BlackBerry and Trend Micro announced BlackBerry Guardian, a real-time tool that scans installed apps for malware against the company’s extensive database.
The two companies combined resources to ensure apps within BlackBerry World are safe for BlackBerry 10 users to download. BlackBerry Guardian is a “multi-layered strategy” that involves both automated and manual analysis to vet apps before they show up on the storefront.
While the feature is already active, on the company blog today David MacFarlane, Senior Director of Security Assurance at BlackBerry, wrote that the upcoming Passport and Classic will automatically scan all Android apps, including the recently announced partnership with Amazon Appstore.
“I’m happy to announce that starting with the BlackBerry Passport, BlackBerry Guardian will automatically check all Android apps that customers install on their BlackBerry smartphones. This includes apps from the Amazon Appstore and apps installed from other sources. If a suspicious app is detected, the user will have the choice to proceed or cancel the installation. This on-device service will be available for free to users of the BlackBerry Passport, BlackBerry Classic and future BlackBerry 10 devices. Existing BlackBerry 10 customers can expect to see BlackBerry Guardian in an upcoming BlackBerry 10 software update.”
In 2012, Google announced its own client and server-side solution for ensuring sideloaded Android apps were free of malware. In the same year, Trend Micro said BlackBerry 7 was the most secure mobile OS, slightly ahead of iOS at the time.
Source: BlackBerry
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