CellCrypt Encrypts Your Calls

Every once in a blue moon, something a bit different pops up in our inbox. This time, it happened to be Cellcrypt. To be clear, Cellcrypt isn’t a place where you toss your dead cell phones, it’s actually a play on words for ‘encryption’. As you might have guessed, it’s encryption for cell phones. Here’s how it works, and why VARs working with the government might be interested…

First off, there’s a few caveats. You’ll need to be on T-Mobile’s network or a T-Mobile WiFi hotspot. You’ll also need to be using a BlackBerry or a mobile device Cellcrypt runs on. (Check in with Cellcrypt for supported platforms.)

Cellcrypt claims to offer government-grade voice security, which means encryption that is wrought from the FIPS 140-2 standard. That standard has been approved by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology. In theory, a government official (or maybe a VAR working for the government) or a traveling executive can use Cellcrypt and their “T-Mobile Wi-Fi-enabled BlackBerry” to make a classified call. No sweat, no worries about that sensitive information getting leaked out (unless you’re yelling it).

Cellcrypt points to survey data from The Ponemon Institute, which claims it costs U.S. corporations about $1.3 million every time a corporate secret is revealed. For 60% of the surveyed companies, secret leakage occur at least once a month.

So how does Cellcrypt’s technology work to stop such leakage? It’s pretty simple. Cellcrypt’s application provides the end-to-end encryption by using an IP data channel that gets encrypted — almost like a voice VPN. It supports WiFi, 2.5G, 3G, and 3.5G networks, too.

And T-Mobile’s official comment? David Pepe, the Divisional Director, Government Sales at T-Mobile, offered up this prepared statement:

Will government VARs check out Cellcrypt? We’re all ears.

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