Another treat for sci-fi fans: a highly secure smartphone that 'self-destructs' is now being offered by BlackBerry and Boeing after 2 years of painstakingly developing the tech.

Well, it's not something that literally destroys itself or anything flashy like that -- it's more in the lines of scrubbing all data from the phone even when traces of tampering are detected. Does not sound too cool after all but you can be sure it does the work just fine.

Apparently, the phone dubbed as "Boeing Black" is capable of deleting all data it contains once it detects tampering or any attempt at disassembly. According to an expert from Dyman & Associates Risk Management Projects, "...any attempt to break open the casing of the device would trigger functions that would delete the data and software contained within the device and make the device inoperable."

The Boeing-BlackBerry collaboration which was announced last week is a pretty good partnership considering the mobile company's leading role when it comes to security and privacy features.

The announcement came from BlackBerry's CEO John Chen. He said, "We're pleased to announce that Boeing is collaborating with BlackBerry to provide a secure mobile solution for Android devices utilizing our BES12 (BlackBerry Enterprise Service 12) platform."

Aside from the so-called "self-destruct" feature, there are other useful features added on Boeing Black like biometric scanners and encryption programs for a more secure line that prevents eavesdropping. Also, it has dual SIM capability, presumably to accommodate easier switching between commercial and government networks. It can even connect to satellites via a modular expansion port.

According to an update from Dyman & Associates Risk Management Projects, it is going to use BES12, a security platform usually dedicated for businesses. It is also reported to run on Android OS with encrypted storage and data transmission. This is definitely welcome news for governments as it makes it easier to keep tabs on their staff's communication lines.

As of yet, it is not known when the said phone will be available though Boeing has reportedly started providing some to prospective customers. And knowing that Boeing has been a long-time space, weapons and jet provider to the government, it's obviously offering it first to staff of the Department of Homeland Security or Pentagon.

Though BlackBerry and Boeing apparently built the phone mainly for government use, it's not far fetch to think that they could bring the same tech to the public. Why should you care? Well, it's quite obvious that smartphone security is a big issue so its users are always on the lookout for options to secure their data. And a phone that can self-destruct sounds just about right.

6 local and cloud-based password managers make passwords stronger and online life easier for Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone users.

Thanks to high-profile computer security scares such as the Heartbleed vulnerability and the Target data breach, and to the allegations leveled at the government and cloud providers by Edward Snowden, more of us Internet users are wising up about the security of our information. One of the smarter moves we can make to protect ourselves is to use a password manager. It's one of the easiest too.

A password manager won't shield you against Heartbleed or the NSA, but it's an excellent first step in securing your identity, helping you increase the strength of the passwords that protect your online accounts because it will remember those passwords for you. A password manager will even randomly generate strong passwords, without requiring you to memorize or write down these random strings of characters. These strong passwords help shield against traditional password attacks such as dictionary, rainbow tables, or brute-force attacks.

Many password managers allow you to automatically populate your password vault by capturing your Web log-ins using a browser plug-in and allowing you to store these credentials. Other options for populating your password database include importing an Excel spreadsheet or manually entering your log-in information. Further, using these stored credentials is typically automated using a browser plug-in, which recognizes the website's username and password fields, then populates these fields with the appropriate log-in information.

Although several browsers offer similar functionality out of the box, many password managers offer several benefits over the built-in browser functionality -- including encryption, cross-platform and cross-browser synchronization, mobile device support, secure sharing of credentials, and support for multifactor authentication. In some cases, usernames and passwords must be copied from the password manager into the browser, reducing the ease-of-use but increasing the level of security by requiring entry of the master password before accessing stored log-in information.

Some password managers store your credentials locally, others rely on cloud services for storage and synchronization, and still others take a hybrid approach. Some of the options using local storage (such as KeePass and 1Password) still support synchronization through Dropbox or other storage services. Deciding which password manager is best for you will come down to features and ease-of-use, as well as to whether you're comfortable storing your passwords on the Internet.

Mobile health applications need a risk assessment model and a framework for supporting clinical use to ensure patient safety and professional reputation, according to a study published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research,  FierceHealthIT reports.

Study Details

For the study, researchers at Warwick Medical School in the United Kingdom analyzed the current regulatory oversight of mobile apps and identified several different kinds of risks associated with medical apps and ways to address those risks (Mottl, FierceHealthIT, 9/20).

The researchers defined a mobile medical app as "any software application created for or used on a mobile device for medical or other health-related purposes."

Study Findings

The researchers noted that there is not currently a clinically relevant risk assessment framework for mobile health apps, meaning health care professionals, patients and mobile app developers face difficulty in assessing the risks posed by specific apps.

They identified several risks associated with using mobile health apps, including:

• Hindering professional reputation;


• Causing possible patient privacy breaches;


• Resulting in low-quality; and


• Providing Poor medical advice.

The authors also outlined some of the most common variables that can affect those risk factors, including:

• Apps that contain inaccurate or out-of-date information;


• Inappropriate use by patients; and


• Inadequate user education (Lewis et al., Journal of Medical Internet Research, 9/15/14).

Of those, the researchers warned that a lack of education poses the biggest threat to patient safety and recommended that health care professionals begin learning about the apps' risks before prescribing their use to patients.

Overall, the study's authors called for a formal risk assessment framework for mobile health apps to help reduce the "residual risk" by identifying and implementing various safety measures in the future development, procurement and regulation of mobile apps. They argued that medical apps will flourish in the health care industry after a process has been created to ensure their quality and safety can be "reliably assessed and managed" (FierceHealthIT, 9/20).

 

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