Hackers perform a DingleBerry on BlackBerry®; jailbreak PlayBook

In a rare incident, three hackers have reportedly claimed that they have been successful in performing a jailbreak on the Blackberry PlayBook. It means the hackers can gain illicit access to its root hardware and the software. They can further run unauthorized and malicious applications to their advantage. One of the hackers, who uses the pseudonym Neuralic, even posted a video on the YouTube to evince the vulnerabilities present in the device. However, this is not all. The hackers have also announced that they would soon launch an application, which they called DingleBerry, to let the tablet users break into the device on their own. The other two hackers are going by the nicknames xpvqs and cmw (or Chris Wade). In an alert response to the claims, RIM has initiated an enquiry and is holding discussions with some security researchers.

The whole episode can be a major setback for BlackBerry, as the parent company RIM (Research In Motion) has been recently very keen to catch up with the leading competitors in the IT market. It had declared this July that the BlackBerry PlayBook is equipped with the stringent security standards to cater to the norms of even the US federal agencies. Moreover, the claims shall bring great disappointment to the fans, as Blackberry is considered a highly trusted brand worldwide.

Nonetheless, it is somehow alleviating to know that the other BlackBerry devices remain unaffected by this upheaval, since the BlackBerry PlayBook uses an entirely different QNX-based (similar to real-time UNIX) operating system. Let us be hopeful that BlackBerry recovers the lost ground quickly by trashing away the loopholes, if any.