What if someone steals a BlackBerry smartphone, changes the software and then returns it?
Each time a BlackBerry smartphone boots up, the Boot ROM checks the authenticity of the Java® Virtual Machine and the Operating System. The Java Virtual Machine then checks the integrity of the BlackBerry software. If any of these checks fail, the smartphone does not boot up. In order to successfully change the BlackBerry software, an unauthorized user would need to change the Boot ROM, which is non-trivial and requires access to the device hardware. Thus, the device software cannot be changed without access to the hardware. In addition to requiring proprietary knowledge, accessing the hardware leaves behind evidence that the smartphone has been tampered with.
