In a press release less than 24 hours ago, European mobile solutions provider, Sectra has announced that it has partnered up with Samsung KNOX to create a ‘secure smartphone’. This is what Michael Bertilsson, President of Sectra Communications says about this, “Through the cooperation with Samsung and the integration of Samsung KNOX in our Tiger solution, we have combined our expertise in encryption technology and Samsung’s advanced knowledge in platform security. This strategic cooperation with Samsung allows us to focus on meeting our users’ needs in terms of communications security, availability, and mobility in an environment where new threats against smartphones appear on an increasing basis”. As of now, this smartphone is being sent to an unnamed European defense organization. The phone is a combination Samsung’s KNOX solution and Sectra’s Tiger/R solutions. Sectra is known to be one of the longtime players within the mobile voice encryption market, for about 20 years.
Samsung KNOX is not really well heard of because it is not widely used by the public. It is a program the enables the user to keep their business and personal content separate within the same smartphone. By pressing an icon on the device, the user can switch between their business and personal content without any rebooting or delay. This program is only available to Android devices of Samsung’s. The KNOX program is part of the company’s “Samsung Approved For Enterprise” program to give users better security on their smartphones and tablets. The KNOX program is currently approved for use by those working within the Defense information Systems Agency in the U.S. Though it is only approved for sensitive, not unclassified information, it is still quite a leap for an Asian company to gain approval from the U.S. government. The program name KNOX is derived from Fort Knox, a reputedly secure place in the U.S.
This combination of Samsung and Sectra programs will enable the device to be less vulnerable to hacking and ensure that the communication lines are being constantly kept secure, even if the device is calling a different service provider. This device is designed for use within the RESTRICTED security class level. The partnership between Samsung and Sectra will test the waters between how Asian and European companies will collaborate in the future.