BlackBerry Limited (BB.T) Launches Major Update to BlackBerry Guard®

BlackBerry Limited (BB.T) today announced a major update to its BlackBerry Guard® managed detection and response (MDR) service. Through this update, BlackBerry Guard® now also delivers a managed extended detection and response (XDR) service. Before we get into the meat and bones of this press release, let’s talk about the relevant tech, starting with BlackBerry Guard®.

BlackBerry Guard® refers to BlackBerry’s subscription-based managed detection and response (MDR) service. For context, MDR services are designed to protect your data and assets even if a threat bypasses common organizational security controls. In addition to providing 24/7 security control, MDR services include a range of fundamental security activities including cloud-managed security for organizations that have limited resources or lack the expertise to constantly monitor potential attacks surfaces.

“With cybercrime drastically increasing due to the pandemic, cybercriminals are targeting people — not just the systems in place. Legacy mitigation tools designed to safeguard organizations’ systems and infrastructure only, are now inadequate to stop expanding attack avenues. Organizations operating in hybrid workplace environments need human threat experts to manage cybersecurity incident alerts, deal with and prevent attacks, and fill in the resource and skills gap. The integrated BlackBerry Guard solution provides customers with an innovative and industry-leading managed XDR service, keeping employees secure 24×7,” said Billy Ho, Executive Vice President of Product Engineering, BlackBerry.

By combining advanced analytics, threat intelligence, and human expertise, MDR services are able to provide incident investigation and response at the host and network levels. It is also worth noting that MDR services are typically outsourced. Some of the most popular MDR providers, including Red Canary, IBM Security, and Bitdefender. With this in mind, BlackBerry’s BlackBerry Guard® has been updated to include both MDR and extended detection and response (XDR) services.

MDR is suited for organizations that cannot maintain their own Security Operations Center (SOC). On the contrary, XDR enables an organization to proactively protect itself against cybersecurity threats rather than outsourcing. That being said, XDR is better suited for organizations with their own SOC. However, BlackBerry Guard® providers both MDR and XDR services. Pretty sweet, right?

BlackBerry Guard® Update

BlackBerry Guard® managed XDR solutions provide coverage beyond endpoints by integrating Cylance® AI-powered BlackBerry® Optics, BlackBerry® Persona, BlackBerry® Gateway, and BlackBerry® Protect solutions with Exabeam Fusion Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) and XDR solutions.

To provide some context, BlackBerry cybersecurity is powered by Cylance® artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). This is intended to fortify BlackBerry’s cybersecurity services with enhanced visibility and protection against current and future cyber threats. Referring back to BlackBerry Guard®, the service offers a variety of functionalities:

Advanced threat detection across all products and Guard services, based on BlackBerry’s industry-leading 7th generation Cylance AI/ML models, which have analyzed over 1.4 trillion files, extracting over 20 billion features
AI-based auto threat responses to reduce time to respond (TTR) and resolve major incidents as quickly as possible, reducing cyber risks, maximizing uptime, and eliminating threats as they appear
Support for multi-regional architecture to ensure that customers can comply with their regional data residency requirements, such as GDPR
Continuous monitoring of various attack surfaces to prevent malicious malware and phishing attempts from attacking customer environments

BlackBerry Guard®’s new functionality was achieved through a partnership with Exabeam, a leader in next-generation SIEM that powers security teams with analytics-driven insights to uncover, investigate, and resolve threats. With this in mind, BlackBerry’s customers will benefit from BlackBerry’s solutions and Exabeam Fusion. Speaking of, Exabeam Fusion offers high-fidelity alerts and cross-tool threat hunting services capable of automatically correlating data from mobile devices, servers, users, and networks to rapidly detect potential threats in real-time, all visible from a single console.

“We’re excited that after extensive due diligence, BlackBerry selected Exabeam to enable the BlackBerry Guard managed XDR solution to help end clients more easily achieve holistic XDR coverage with a simplified experience…Exabeam Fusion SIEM and Exabeam Fusion XDR combined with the BlackBerry AI-powered solutions will offer thousands of BlackBerry customers a powerful and prescriptive solution to solve their most pressing threat, detection, investigation, and response needs,” said Gorka Sadowski, Chief Strategy Officer, Exabeam.

Through BlackBerry Guard®, BlackBerry’s managed XDR analysts and threat prevention experts work as an extension of customers’ security and IT teams. Put simply, BlackBerry’s newly updated BlackBerry Guard® will provide customers with access to BlackBerry Guard®’s managed XDR services as well as BlackBerry Cyber Suite products and Exabeam solutions.

Looking forward, on December 21, 2021, BlackBerry will report results for Q3 2022, via a conference call. This call can be accessed via live stream on the Company’s website. At the end of the day, BlackBerry has an expansive portfolio of products including cybersecurity and critical embedded system (CES) solutions. With this in mind, the Company has catalysts in highly lucrative markets. For example, the Global Cyber Security Market was valued at USD$167.13 billion in 2020 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.9%.

Similarly, BlackBerry QNX has created a foothold for BlackBerry in the Embedded System Market, which is expected to reach USD$116.2 billion by 2025. The growing demand for embedded systems worldwide bodes well for a Company like BlackBerry, which recently entered into an agreement with BMW Group to license BlackBerry QNX. Depending on how the Company’s Q3 2022 Financial Results look, BlackBerry Limited may be worth adding to your watchlist.

BlackBerry’s share price opened at $11.56, down from a previous close of $11.78. The Company’s shares are down -4.24% and were trading at $11.28 as of 1:00 PM EST.