{"id":49299,"date":"2023-04-28T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-04-27T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jotelulu.com\/blog\/what-is-bitlocker-and-why-is-it-useful\/"},"modified":"2023-04-28T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T22:00:00","slug":"what-is-bitlocker-and-why-is-it-useful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jotelulu.com\/en-gb\/blog\/what-is-bitlocker-and-why-is-it-useful\/","title":{"rendered":"What Is BitLocker And Why Is It Useful?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In this article, we’ll take a look at how you can use BitLocker <\/strong>to protect your devices and drives <\/strong>from unauthorised access, even if they get lost or stolen.<\/p>\n

You’re probably rather tired of hearing about the importance of security<\/strong> by now, whether it be at work or at home. People never stop telling us that no security measure <\/strong>is too much <\/strong>and that hackers and attackers are everywhere, waiting to pounce.<\/p>\n

But today, we’re going to look at one security measure in particular and explain how you can use it to protect your data.<\/p>\n

Let’s imagine that you’ve got a really expensive, latest-edition, top-of-the-range Surface Laptop Studio<\/a> with all the extras; it costs almost €5,000, which to me seems rather ridiculous, no matter how good a device it is.<\/p>\n

Now let’s suppose that you go to visit a customer to talk to them about a project. All the project information, the plans, designs, specifications, appendices and customer data, are on your laptop.<\/p>\n

And actually, your laptop probably contains data about other customers too. You know, you’ve got an Excel spreadsheet or a database that contains the names and numbers of all your customers, including any quotes, orders, etc.<\/p>\n

Now let’s imagine that you stop at a petrol station to fill up your tank. You go inside to pay, and during that brief lapse of concentration, someone steals your laptop right out of the car because you’ve made a very, very common mistake: you left it on the passenger seat.<\/p>\n

This situation is actually not all that unusual. It happens a lot more than you’d think. But here, the problem is not just the fact that they’ve stolen your laptop; they’ve stolen your laptop, and now, they can get to your sensitive data<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In a situation like this, you could find yourself the victim of data<\/strong> filtering, <\/strong>or if your customer data is released, you could be slapped with a fine for breaching the GDPR <\/strong>and lose your customers’ trust entirely<\/strong>. It could even be a «targeted theft» <\/strong>by the competition.<\/p>\n

So, what small security measure could we have taken to ensure that this situation remains an inconvenient theft and not a huge security breach?<\/p>\n

Well, it’s as simple as activating BitLocker, a data protection solution offered by Microsoft for both business and home users.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But… What Is BitLocker?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

BitLocker is a data protection feature included <\/strong>in Microsoft operating systems that allows you to encrypt your hard drive <\/strong>and thus prevent data theft<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Essentially, BitLocker prevents unauthorised users from accessing your data<\/strong>, even if the hard drive is removed and put in another device.<\/p>\n

BitLocker first appeared as part of a Windows Vista update on 30 June 2007, and it can work on various different types of devices. However, it works best on devices that have TPM (Trusted Platform Module) 1.2 or later<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

NOTE: <\/strong>The “TPM”, Trusted Platform Module, is a small chip embedded on the motherboard of modern devices and that allows you to store encryption keys for the operating system and thereby protect your most sensitive data.<\/em><\/p>\n

However, if your device doesn’t have TPM 1.2 or later, you can still use BitLocker; you will just have to use USB sticks to store your recovery keys should you ever need them.<\/p>\n

One of the main advantages of using BitLocker, aside from protecting your hard drive even if it is removed from your computer<\/strong>, is that it allows you to stop the system from booting up. With BitLocker enabled it will wait for the access key to unlock the disk before starting up the system.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What do you need to run BitLocker?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

First, as we’ve mentioned, for optimal performance, your device will need to have TPM 1.2 or later<\/strong>. If you don’t, you’ll need some USB sticks.<\/p>\n

If you do<\/em> have TPM, you’ll also need to make sure that your UEFI or BIOS is TCG-compatible <\/strong>(Trusted Computing Group), as the UEFI or BIOS will establish a chain of trust for the pre-operating system startup. In either case, you’ll also need to be able to read and write to USB in the pre-operating system environment.<\/p>\n

The hard drive <\/strong>that you’re working on should have at least two partitions:<\/strong> an initial NTFS-formatted one that contains the operating system and another of approximately 250-500MB that contains the boot data. These partitions are created automatically when Windows is installed.<\/p>\n

The operating systems <\/strong>that support BitLocker are as follows:<\/p>\n