BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB), as we all know, offers the most secure devices. However, a research found that even though BlackBerry has the most secured OS, few of the third-party apps could pose a security risk for the users.
A security research report by Lloyd Summers from FileArchiveHaven.com studied 12 popular apps on BlackBerry 10, and tested them for the potential security risk from the point of view of the end-user. Unfortunately, by the standards they have set, some of the apps failed the test.
How the apps were tested?
As per the study, Snap10, which is a third-party SnapChat client made by NemOry Studios, is not fully-secure. For testing, the researcher connected the Snapchat 2x with every ~340x internet connections, implying “it has the potential to use up-to 300 times the bandwidth compared to the official Snapchat application. It connected to a dozen websites in addition to the Snapchat website, and requested a total of 10 permissions. The application submitted hundreds of hidden advertisement requests to Smaato but did not show them to the user,” the researchers found. Also, and more importantly, it was giving the users data such as name, gender, age etc. to a hidden Nemory Studios website.
N4BB contacted Nemory, who told that only “user data when they’re required to submit it” is collected. Nemory told N4BB that edits will be made to each of the apps that FAH report claimed to be risky, in terms of the security.
List of the BlackBerry third-party apps studied
Two more apps from NemOry Studios that were found unsafe by the study are Insta10 and Twittly. Other BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) third party apps such as Blaq, iGrann, and even Foursquare, which were studied under the study, were found to carry low-risk for the end user.
Following is the list of the apps, along with their risk rating, that were studied: Snap2Chat (no longer available) Risk: Compromised, Snap10 Risk: Compromised, Insta10 (only available through Beta Zone) Risk: High, Twittly Risk: High, Facebook Messenger Lite Risk: Low, Igrann Risk: Low, Blaq Risk: Low, Four Square Risk: Low, Hub Browser Risk: Clean, Work Wide Risk: Clean, BlackBullet Risk: Clean and Meetup for BlackBerry 10 Risk: Clean.
In a top to the users over selecting safe apps, the report said that users should not go for the apps from the developers where support contradicts BlackBerry Ltd (NASDAQ:BBRY) (TSE:BB) support sites.
