RIM (BlackBerry) hacked after London riots

BlackBerry’s official blog has been defaced. It appears that the action was taken after RIM announced they were working with the British Police force on investigations linked to the London riots. The hackers appear to have gained access to one of RIM’s databases.

London rioters appear to have a preference for BlackBerry Smartphones and their BBM service (BlackBerry Messenger) so that they can freely send instant messages. While the British police have been monitoring Facebook and Twitter closely, they believe that BBM has been playing a role in the organization of the riots.
 
BBM is a closed and encrypted system, allowing users to secretly send instant messages. BlackBerry Smartphone’s are required to access the service, but according to a recent study conducted by Ofcom, 37% of British teenagers are connected to this BlackBerry service!

Research in Motion, the Canadian manufacturer of BlackBerry, indicated early in the week that they would be assisting British authorities in their investigations of the London riots. The result is that RIM’s official BlackBerry blog has been hacked.

The site was hacked by TriCk - TeaMp0isoN (see The Hacker News) with a threatening message left on the welcome page: "Dear RIM, You Will _NOT_ assist the UK Police. […]if you do assist the police by giving them chat logs, gps locations, customer information & access to peoples BlackBerryMessengers, you will regret it".

The hackers threatened to make the telephone numbers, names and addresses of RIM employees public. "We have access to your database". It now needs to be seen if RIM will request the assistance of British authorities to track down the hackers.

BBM has already been targeted by the United Arab Emirates and India, with RIM forced to provide access to local authorities.