BlackBerry blog hacked after London riots

London and other cities in the United Kingdom have been hit by riots for the last few days.

Many of those responsible for the looting, arson and rioting which has hit British streets are believed to be teenagers, and the BlackBerry Messenger service (BBM for short) is believed to have played a key role in assisting rioters organise their activities.

Unlike systems like Twitter where messages are searchable by the public, BBM is a closed system which makes it easy for users to secretly send one-to-many messages to their contacts, instantly and with no cost.

Its low price compared to Android and iPhone smartphones and the BBM technology has helped make the BlackBerry a popular choice amongst British teenagers. According to Ofcom, an astonishing 37% of British teenagers have a BlackBerry.

So, maybe it’s no surprise that some people…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, or drop him an email.