A penetration testing company has found that many companies running BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES) could be inadvertently opening a door to attackers. Penetration testing consultancy NTA Monitor found that most of its customers running the BlackBerry Server with Microsoft Exchange were taking the path of least resistance by opening unencrypted ports from the heart of their network to service providers. The providers, in turn, opened a return back to the BES that would pass through firewalls without any policies being applied. This left the network open on several levels, including session hijacking, IP spoofing, or just the interception of unencrypted traffic.

"A hacker could potentially use this back channel to move around inside an organization undetected, removing confidential information or installing malware on to the network," said Roy Hills, NTA's technical director. According to NTA Monitor's technical manager, Adrian Goodhead, the open configuration was no accident of poor implementation, accounting for a sizeable 10-15 of the company's enterprise-level customers using BlackBerry handhelds (roughly 70-80 percent of the total base they surveyed). The commonest cause was simply cost.

Source:→ PC World

BlackBerry, BES, BlackBerry Enterprise Server, Hacking