Why the fuss about Katim?
A new ultra-secure smartphone reveals where the industry is going with security
The Katim looks like a normal Android smartphone on the outside. Clean lines, a dazzling screen, a slight camera bulge, everything you would come to expect from a modern smartphone. But under the surface, the Katim is one of the world’s first smartphones fully designed with security in mind.
Produced by DarkMatter, a UAE company specialising in secure communication solutions, the Katim is part of a growing trend in the industry that places cyber security above all other features. So, what makes a phone “secure” and who started this trend in the first place? In 2014, an American company called Silent Circle launched one of the world’s first consumer “ultra-secure” smartphones called the Blackphone. Using a version of the popular Android platform, the phone’s operating system was specifically designed to be focused on encryption.
Instead of burying security controls deep in the software, the Blackphone forced users to take control over their security settings. All messages were encrypted by default, fingerprints were required to access various functions and the phone allowed users to remotely destroy the contents of the phone if it was lost. Even the email application used the industry-leading PGP protocol on the phone by default.
At the time, these features were not nearly as ubiquitous as they are today. That is one reason why DarkMatter’s new Katim phone is significant. Average users might not be willing to shell out for an ul- tra- secure smartphone but the standards these devices pioneer influence the entire industry. WhatsApp, the incredibly popular social messaging application used by millions, made history last year when it decided to encrypt all chats by default. This decision didn’t take place out of thin air.
Darkmatter is pushing the industry forward with several new features in the Katim phone. The device will feature a mode that shuts down all antennas so that hackers can’t turn the device into a remote listening post. Cameras on the phone can be “locked” so that hackers can’t turn them on without a user knowing (a practice that, according to Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency in the United States regularly used in intelligence gathering). The Katim also features new USB interface protection designed to root out malware and theft.
These features are currently niche and aimed at people deeply concerned about their cyber privacy. But as we continue to become more reliant on smartphones in our daily lives, securing these devices will be a major business. That the Katim phone has a special protocol protecting its boot sequence might mean nothing to most of us now, but in the next Apple iPhone such a protocol could become a standard feature. Innovation takes many forms. When it comes to the future of cyber security, privacy-focused devices such as the Katim are quietly changing the way we protect ourselves online.