RIM has had some of its stellar security record tarnished when the BlackBerry PlayBook was jailbroken. The current versions of the OS have been holding up but users are still downgrading to gain root access. (Update: The current retail PlayBook OS 2.0 cannot currently be downgraded) RIM’s usually VERY quiet and media shy BlackBerry Security Incident Response Team (BBSIRT) has actually spoken out on the BlackBerry Business blog about PlayBook Jailbreaking. Adrian Stone, RIM’s Director of the BBSIRT, wrote up a whole post about how RIM responds to jailbreak related reports.
Adrian rightly points out that there are two angles when it comes to jailbreaking with one requiring multiple changes by an authorized user to lower security settings and another more serious one where remote users can take over your device. Think of it as the difference between the current complex Dingleberry jailbreak compared to a Flash vulnerability exploit that can be done by any website.
RIM obviously recommends against jailbreaking but if you are interested in BlackBerry security check out Adrian’s post here.
Steve Bauman Not Registered
Posted: March 28, 2012 at 8:05 PM EST
“The current versions of the OS have been holding up but users are still downgrading to gain root access.”
This seems to imply that people can downgrade from retail os 2 to obtain root access,. To the best of my knowledge there is no downgrade path from retail os 2.