- Microsoft confirms that the FBI can access BitLocker keys using valid legal warrants
- Cloud accounts store unencrypted keys, allowing access by authorities; 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) will provide the user’s BitLocker encryption keys to the FBI if the agency requests them through a valid legal order.
When a person installs Windows 11, they are asked to create a Microsoft account. That account may be linked to the person’s cloud account or may be stored locally. In both cases, 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. While users can opt for a local one, Microsoft went the extra mile to hide that fact, essentially pushing users towards the cloud-based one.
Comfort and risk.
For users with cloud accounts, Microsoft also retains encryption keys in unencrypted form, meaning the company can technically access user data or provide it to authorities when required by law. Obviously, Microsoft frames this as “key recovery,” rather than “backdoor access to people’s data”:
“While key recovery offers convenience, it also carries a risk of unwanted access, which is why Microsoft believes customers are in the best position to decide… how to manage their keys,” said Microsoft spokesman Charles Chamberlayne. Forbes.
Evidently, the confirmation raised quite a few eyebrows. US Senator Ron Wyden, for example, said Forbes Microsoft’s behavior was “simply irresponsible”:
“Allowing ICE or other Trump thugs to secretly obtain a user’s encryption keys is giving them access to that person’s entire digital life and puts the personal safety of users and their families at risk,” he said.
Microsoft says the FBI makes about 20 such requests each year. Most of them cannot be fulfilled because people create accounts on the device, instead of accounts in the cloud.
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