Blackberry 6 Kernel gets 140-2 certification as Apple’s iPhone, iPad still in process

Research In Motion, maker of Blackberry phone, said the cryptographic kernel of its BlackBerry 6 mobile operating system has earned the FIPS 140-2 security certification.

This opened the doors for its devices based on its operating system (OS) to be used by US government agencies.

Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) is a classification used by the U.S to validate the security of a computer system’s cryptographic services.

The certification officially shows the green light to the OS for use by government employees handing “sensitive but unclassified” information.

The previous versions of the Blackberry OS have also complied with this standard.

Now RIM takes this certification as an advantage in the smartphone market for its latest handsets where apparently it is losing its ground to Apple’s iPhone and Google Android based systems.

RIM soon will launch its Playbook tablet that runs a variation of the QNX operation system, already FIPS certified.

Apple’s iPhone or iPad, both are in the process of getting the certification from the government.