In order to use Elcomsoft System Recovery, you will first need to create a bootable media (e.g. How to mount the BitLocker volume with Elcomsoft System Recovery The following table summarizes the experience. You can still mount the volume if you have the correct Recovery Key. These combinations require the presence of all enabled protectors at the same time in order to unlock the volume. In this case, BitLocker uses input from of a USB memory device that contains the external key. If the computer is not equipped with a TPM module, an edit to Windows Group Policies can enable BitLocker protection on boot volume with a so-called Startup Key. If you have that Recovery Key, ESR will be also able to mount the volume. When creating password-protected BitLocker volumes, Windows will automatically produce the Recovery Key. Obviously, if you have the password, ESR will be able to mount the volume. This is the most commonly used protection scheme for non-system volumes and external drives. The volume can be only unlocked with ESR if you have access to the volume’s Recovery Key. If the TPM is all that you have (that is, no Recovery Key is available in the AD, the user’s Microsoft Account or as a file/printout), unlocking a volume by booting from a USB drive will not be possible. The volume master key (VMK) is stored in the secure Trusted Platform Module (TPM), and is only released on verified boot. This is by far the most commonly used protector in corporate environments. Let’s see how the choice of BitLocker protectors affect the possibility to successfully unlock the volume. While multiple protectors are commonly used for access recovery purposes, the most security conscious may specify the use of several protectors, all of which must be used together to unlock the encrypted volumes. When it comes to recovery access to a locked-out computer, things suddenly become more complicated than you might have imagined after reading the Unlocking BitLocker: Can You Break That Password? article.īitLocker offers a range of protection options, mixing the TPM, all-digit PIN codes, recovery keys, passwords (user passphrases) and USB keys. For example, you can reset the user’s Windows account password, assign administrative privileges to a certain user, extract stored passwords and do a lot more as detailed in the How to Unlock Windows Systems with a Bootable Flash Drive Unlock all BitLocker volumes to which you have one of the supported protectors (see below), including the system (boot) volume.By booting from a USB drive, you can now do the following: Starting with version 7.05, Elcomsoft System Recovery can be used to unlock BitLocker volumes when you boot from the ESR USB drive. However, subsequent steps require either reinstalling Windows or backing up the data off the encrypted volume. Granted, one can still boot from a Windows recovery disk and mount the encrypted volume by supplying the recovery key. What’s essentially wrong with this approach is that Microsoft offers no straightforward path to reinstate access to the user’s Windows account located on a BitLocker-encrypted system volume even if the backup protector (e.g. The volumes are commonly using TPM (the first protector), while the backup Recovery Key (a 48-character numeric password) is created and stored in the AD, the user’s Microsoft Account, or on the hard disk or removable USB drive. By default, Windows requires the minimum of two protectors when the user creates an encrypted volume. Multiple combinations of such protectors are available. The follow-up article Unlocking BitLocker: Can You Break That Password? reveals much of the detailed under-the-hood operation of BitLocker we recommend reading that article even if you know about BitLocker.īitLocker volumes may be protected with one or several protectors of various types that can be used together (for tougher security) or in parallel (for easier recovery). That article describes the basics of BitLocker as viewed by the computer user. If you are not familiar with BitLocker encryption, you may find the Introduction to BitLocker: Protecting Your System Disk handy. This isn’t the first article we publish about BitLocker. We are offering a straightforward solution for reinstating access to BitLocker-protected Windows systems with the help of a bootable USB drive. While adding the necessary layer of security, BitLocker also has the potential of locking administrative access to the encrypted volumes if the original Windows logon password is lost. A large number of organizations protect startup disks with BitLocker encryption. BitLocker is Windows default solution for encrypting disk volumes.
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