A Forums member on the portable device content provider and news service MobileRead Networks notes a recent announcement by the Fraunhofer Institute for Secure Information Technology that it has been commissioned by BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion to conduct a security review of the BlackBerry device.

This review is being condcucted on the initiative of the German Federal Office for Information Security, known in that nation as BSI. That's their logo up there on the right

Translating from German-language documents he has read about the initiative, MobileRead Forums Member Alexander posts from Switzerland that "the BSI worries that sensitive information could fall in the hands of the wrong people," he writes. He notes that "RIM dismisses the allegations, maintaining that it's virtually impossible for them to share information to third parties, because data is not stored on their servers but only forwarded from there to the final destination.

"In addition," Alexander adds, "the forwarded data is encrypted using popular AES or DES3 encryption to prevent illegal eavesdropping, so the company claims. "

Note: The Read link below this post contains a link to a BlackBerry security warning posted on the BSI site. The warning is in German, but several free translation utilities are available to convert this document into English.