How BlackBerry Has Become a Cyber-Security Player

BlackBerry is a very different company today than it was a decade ago, as the one-time mobile giant is now firmly positioning itself to be a global player in the cyber-security market. Among the new assets in the BlackBerry security portfolio is Cylance, which BlackBerry acquired in a $1.4 billion deal announced in November 2018. Cylance is, however, only one of many cyber-security technologies within BlackBerry. In a video interview with eWEEK, BlackBerry CTO Charles Eagan explains what his company is now doing in cyber-security as it transitions away from its mobile device past. "We probably have 50 different elements in our security portfolio," Eagan told eWEEK. Among the cyber-security technologies in the BlackBerry portfolio is mobile device management (MDM) capabilities gained via the acquisition of Good Technology for $425 million in 2015. “Good gives us a dynamic container to create a secure environment in otherwise insecure devices," Eagan said. QNX Technologies, which BlackBerry acquired in 2010 for $200 million, provides a secure embedded operating system that is widely used in the automotive industry and general engineering. Certicom is another core cyber-security asset in the BlackBerry portfolio, providing cryptographic and hardware key provisioning capabilities.