Germany Flirts With BlackBerry Ban

The German government announced that due to a "dramatic" increase in cyber attacks, its ministers and senior civil servants were ordered not to use BlackBerry and iPhone devices. The announcement comes following an "urgent" recommendation by federal IT security agency BSI, which suggested the German government switch to Simko devices offered by Deutsche Telekom. Interior minister Thomas de Maiziere explained that "a rise in attacks against our networks and in particular against government networks" has led officials to reconsider whether the smartphones' security was aligned with its own. "BlackBerry's infrastructure is a company-owned closed system," he said. "But the access standard must be capable of being set by the government and not by a private company." Additionally, BSI found a major security flaw in Apple's iOS operating system, which could be exploited through PDFs.