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  3. BlackBerry Protect Mobile Overview and Administration Guide
  4. Scanning URLs in text messages

Scanning URLs in text messages

BlackBerry Protect Mobile
 allows your organization to leverage the real-time risk assessment capabilities of the BlackBerry cloud services to warn users of potentially harmful links in text messages on
iOS
 and
Android
 devices.
OS
Feature details
iOS
  • When a user receives an SMS or MMS text message from an unknown contact that contains a URL, the
    BlackBerry UEM Client
     or
    BlackBerry Work
     sends the message to the
    BlackBerry cloud services
     in real time. To protect user privacy, only messages that include URLs are assessed.
  • New incoming text messages from known contacts are automatically considered to be safe and only messages that contain URLs from unknown contacts are scanned and assessed.
  • The
    BlackBerry cloud services
     use advanced machine learning capabilities and accumulated knowledge from threat intelligence feeds to provide an instant assessment of the safety of the URL.
  • The
    BlackBerry Protect Mobile
     library that is embedded in the
    UEM Client
     and
    BlackBerry Work
     also leverages local machine learning models to identify unsafe URLs. If the
    BlackBerry Protect Mobile
     library cannot use the
    BlackBerry cloud services
     for URL scoring, the local machine learning models are used automatically. This ensures a secure browsing experience regardless of the device’s current context or network connectivity.
  • When an unsafe URL in a text message is detected, the message is filtered to the junk folder.
  • Scanning is supported for any
    iOS
     activation type.
Android
  • When a user receives any SMS or MMS text message that contains a URL, the
    BlackBerry UEM Client
     sends the unaltered URL to the
    BlackBerry cloud services
     in real time. To protect user privacy, only messages that include URLs are assessed.
  • Scanning is limited to the app that the end user has set as the default SMS/MMS app on the device.
  • The
    BlackBerry cloud services
     use advanced machine learning capabilities and accumulated knowledge from threat intelligence feeds to provide an instant assessment of the safety of the URL.
  • If a URL is determined to be unsafe,
    UEM
     considers the device to be out of compliance and executes the compliance actions that you configured in the compliance profile that is assigned to the user.
  • Supported for the following activation types:
    • Work space only (
      Android Enterprise
       fully managed device)
    • Work space only (
      Android Management
       fully managed device)
If you blocked a domain or IP address, any URL associated with the blocked domain or IP address will be identified as unsafe.
The
BlackBerry cloud services
 collect only the information required to identify a URL as safe or unsafe. No additional metadata or user identifiers are collected or stored. The data that is collected is never shared with a third party or used by
BlackBerry
 for any purpose other than providing protection from malicious URLs.