BlackBerry, Trend Micro team up to fight mobile malware apps
BlackBerry, the company formerly known as Research in Motion, has announced a partnership with security firm Trend Micro as part of efforts to crack down on rogue mobile applications laden with malware.
The two companies said in a press release today that BlackBerry will incorporate Trend Micro's Mobile Applications Reputation Service with its own back-end proprietary system for analyzing applications.
With this, both new and existing mobile applications on the BlackBerry World application store will be scanned for potentially malicious behavior, thus adding an extra layer of security between the malware writers and the end mobile users.
It comes at a time where the security firm independently warned in late January that Android malware particularly could hit the 1 million mark by the end of this calendar year. In its latest state of the mobile report, Trend Micro warned that malware writers are increasingly turning to mobile platforms in a bid to extort money and personal data from users.
In prepared remarks, BlackBerry Security Response Director Adrian Stone said: "BlackBerry is working with Trend Micro to implement a more robust approach for addressing privacy and security concerns related to third-party applications."
Trend Micro said it has scanned more than 2 million mobile applications with its next-generation cloud-based technology that analyzes application code to ensure security and integrity. The technology also detects abuses in battery, data and memory resources, along with identifying data leaks and risks from malware.
"By checking URLs, emails, files, and applications against continuously updated and correlated threat databases, customers always have immediate access to the latest protection," the companies noted.
BlackBerry's latest smartphone, the touch-only Z10, is already on sale in the U.K. and will launch in North America on the major cellular networks in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile, the hardware keyboard Q10 will launch later in the company's current fiscal quarter.