- Microsoft confirms that the FBI can access BitLocker keys via valid legal orders
- Cloud accounts store unencrypted keys, allowing law enforcement access; local accounts avoid this risk
- Senator Wyden criticizes the practice; The FBI requests about 20 keys a year, mostly without success
Microsoft has confirmed (via Forbes), it will hand over users’ BitLocker encryption keys to the FBI if the agency requests them through a valid legal order.
When someone installs Windows 11, they will be asked to create a Microsoft account. This account can either be linked to the person’s cloud account or stored locally. In either case, the account contains all of the user’s data and is protected by a BitLocker encryption key, a cryptographic key that Windows uses to lock and unlock data on a drive protected by BitLocker Drive Encryption.
Cloud account is the default setting. Although users can opt for a local system, Microsoft has gone to extra lengths to hide this fact, essentially tricking users into switching to the cloud-based system.
Convenience and risk
For users with cloud accounts, Microsoft also keeps encryption keys in an unencrypted form, meaning the company can technically access user data or provide it to law enforcement when required by law. Obviously, Microsoft presents it as “key recovery”, instead of “backdoor access to people’s data”:
“While key recovery is convenient, it also carries the risk of unwanted access, so Microsoft believes that customers are in the best position to decide…how to manage their keys,” Microsoft spokesman Charles Chamberlayne said. Forbes.
Obviously, the confirmation raised quite a few eyebrows. U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, for example, said Forbes Microsoft’s behavior was “simply irresponsible”:
“Allowing ICE or other Trump goons to secretly obtain a user’s encryption keys gives them access to that person’s entire digital life and endangers the personal safety and security of users and their families,” he said.
Microsoft says the FBI makes about 20 such requests each year. Most of them cannot be satisfied because users create accounts on devices rather than in the cloud.
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