To understand the PRIV’s firmware, one must understand the fundamental conflict of its existence. BlackBerry built its reputation on QNX, a real-time operating system renowned for micro-kernel stability and security. The PRIV, however, ran on Android 5.1.1 (Lollipop) at launch.

Security researchers from the team "Qihoo 360" successfully exploited the PRIV using a "just-in-time" (JIT) vulnerability in the browser engine. While this was an application-layer exploit, it demonstrated that the firmware hardening could not protect against every vector.

The most controversial chapter in the PRIV’s firmware history was its update lifecycle.