BlackBerry(s bbry) rolled out on an encrypted version of BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) on Monday, looking to target enterprises and government with a more secure version of its popular messaging app.

BlackBerry first announced in February its plans to dress up its consumer app in a business suit. The new set of features, called the eBBM Suite, taps into the BlackBerry Enterprise software, servers and hosted services already used by its corporate and government customers. The encrypted version of BBM, called BBM Protected, is the first of those features available, BlackBerry said today.

Source: BlackBerry

The service meets U.S. government standard requirements for cryptography (FIPS 140-2), which allows user to exchange private, encrypted communications between BBM clients both within and without a company or organization. External communications between organizations using different messaging servers could be a key feature for landing government and corporate contacts. For instance, defense agencies…