Now even RIM says Etisalat was hacking Blackberries

As reported last week, Etisalat installed software to intercept communications from Blackberries on their customers Blackberries. The software, called Interceptor, was developed by SS8 and was of rather shoddy quality, leading to decreased battery times and slower Blackberries. Etisalat denied any wrong doing and claimed it was an upgrade that would improve 2G to 3G handover. Many people, including me, called this utterly bogus.

Now an unsuspected source of support has come. RIM itself has developed and released a security update to remove the SS8 Interceptor application. Here is their announcement:


Registration App Remover for BlackBerry smartphones

Recently an update may have been provided to you by Etisalat for your BlackBerry Handheld via a WAP push. The Etisalat update is not a RIM-authorized update and was not developed by RIM. Independent sources have concluded that the Etisalat update is not designed to improve performance of your BlackBerry Handheld, but rather to send received messages back to a central server. RIM has developed this software (“Software”) that will enable you to remove the Etisalat update.