What is BitLocker?

BitLocker = ?

I am glad you asked. BitLocker is Microsoft’s hard drive encrypting tool. You enable it on the hard drives residing in your computer or on external drives you attach with a USB cable. This is included in Microsoft Windows 7 and Windows 10 Professional. There is no cost.

I am adapting content from https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee449438(v=ws.10).aspx#BKMK_WhatIsBitLocker. BitLocker Drive Encryption is a data protection feature that provides enhanced protection against data theft or exposure. This applies to computers and removable drives that are lost or stolen. It also provides more secure data deletion when computers are decommissioned. It is much more difficult to recover deleted data from an encrypted drive than from one that is not encrypted.

Encrypt your drives with BitLockerHow it works with operating system drives.

Data on a lost or stolen computer is vulnerable to unauthorized access. Thieves either run a software attack tool against it or transfer the computer’s hard disk to a different computer. BitLocker helps mitigate unauthorized data access on lost or stolen computers by:

  • Encrypting the entire Windows operating system drive on the hard disk. It encrypts all user files and system files on the operating system drive. This includes the swap files and hibernation files.
  • Checking the integrity of early boot components and boot configuration data. On computers that have a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) version 1.2, BitLocker uses the enhanced security capabilities of the TPM. This helps ensure that your data is accessible only if the computer’s boot components appear unaltered and the encrypted disk is located in the original computer.

BitLocker is integrated into Windows 7 and Windows 10. It provides enterprises with enhanced data protection that is easy to manage and configure. For example, it can use an existing Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) infrastructure to remotely store recovery keys.

More to come.

I will write more about BitLocker and why I am aggressively deploying it on client workstations. Stay tuned.