BlackBerry has updated its AtHoc Emergency Mass Notification System (EMNS) to increase its appeal with the federal government. To that end, the company has added AWS GovCloud to its own cloud infrastructure, and enabled the use of derived credentials for identity verification on mobile devices.
The updates will bring AtHoc in line with the latest Office of Personnel Management (OPM) guidelines, which require the use of derived credentials on mobile devices in all federal departments. The solution will help verify the identities of people accessing AtHoc’s messaging service, and ensure that only authorized individuals have access to sensitive materials, and can send and respond to important notifications.
The addition of AWS GovCloud, meanwhile, will make AtHoc compatible with a second hosting environment. The platform was previously only available through the Microsoft Azure Cloud, and is now the first EMNS service with FedRAMP authorization for both hosting environments.
BlackBerry acquired AtHoc in 2015 as part of a broader pivot to IoT security. The company would later receive Azure Cloud FedRAMP approval in 2017, and has since received the Authority to Operate from 14 different government agencies. The Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration Kansas City Field Office is the most recent addition to the list.
“Federal government agencies cannot afford a cybersecurity breach,” said BlackBerry AtHoc Federal Sales VP Dubhe Beinhorn. “The combination of derived credentials with protection and compliance services in the FedRAMP-Azure and -AWS environments makes AtHoc the most secure solution for critical event management and emergency mass notification in the market.”
The Department of Defense is reportedly considering AWS GovCloud as it looks to migrate its Automated Biometric Identification System. In the meantime, BlackBerry has released a new mobile threat detection solution to identify malware on mobile devices, and added behavioral biometrics to its Cylance AI security platform.
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