Bitlocker Encryption

It’s 8am on a Monday morning and you’re ready to start the day. But what’s this? Your computer has booted to a screen demanding something called a Bitlocker recovery key and you’re at a loss for what to do! Bitlocker is the name for a full-disk encryption technology introduced by Microsoft two decades ago. (Apple Macs have their own disk encryption but we’ll just be addressing Windows computers in this article.) On many new computers this security feature is enabled by default. In the past, if someone had physical possession of your computer they could bypass any login screen password by removing the hard drive. Bitlocker makes it virtually impossible for a malicious actor to read the data off your hard drive, and so has been the norm in larger business environments to protect corporate secrets. Yet many home and small business users are still unaware of the technology until one day they must wrestle with it. It’s not uncommon for certain routine updates (BIOS updates in particular) to trigger the tampering protection and have Bitlocker prevent any further use until authorization is granted by inputting the recovery key. This key is a 48-digit number that is unique to your individual computer and is the only way to unlock the disk encryption. To inoculate yourself against having this hair-pulling moment, first check to see if Bitlocker is enabled. Open Windows Settings > Privacy & Security > Device Encryption. If that is toggled off (or the Device Encryption option isn’t even shown) then your disk is not encrypted and you won’t have to worry! If you do have encryption turned on and would like to keep it on, make sure you have that 48-digit recovery key somewhere handy. To find the key, navigate to this website and login with your Microsoft account. Then keep that number somewhere safe and you can rest easy again!