BlackBerry Protect Beta: Enterprise Security in Your Hand

by Andrew Garcia

The beta of BlackBerry Protect can be installed on most new BlackBerryOS 5.0-enabled devices—I used a Bold 9700.

To get setup, I needed to input my BlackBerryID which is tied to an email address used with the device.

From the device, I could configure what information I’d liked backed up to RIM’s servers. I could also set an ongoing backup schedule.

Using my BlackBerryID, I could log into the web portal to manage the phone.

The portal displays what it knows about Protect-enabled devices registered to the account, showing PIN, phone number, device type, and backup status.

From the portal, I could push down a restore job but only from the last backup taken.

From the device, I could choose recent backups stored in the cloud, pulling the information down to my device.

If enabled on the device during initial Protect setup, I could find the phone via the portal. IN this example, the phone was indoors, so wireless triangulation was used for location data instead of the GPS. The green star in the lower, 3D photo shows how off the detected position was from the true location.

From the portal, I could set a device lock password and push it out to the device.

If I know the phone is around somewhere but can’t find it, I could use the portal to tell it to ring loudly. The device will ring, even if it is set to silent mode.

I could use the portal to push out a message that will be displayed as wallpaper on the device, and is visible even if the device is locked.

If I don’t think a lost BlackBerry is coming home, I can easily push out a wipe command that will occur the next time the phone touches the network.

BlackBerry Protect only works on devices that utilize the carrier’s BlackBerry Internet Service. If the device is activated to a BES (or was in the past and was not reset to factory properly), Protect will not work.