Microsoft gave FBI a set of BitLocker encryption keys to unlock suspects’ laptops: reports

Microsoft provided the FBI with the betterment keys to unlock encrypted information connected the hard drives of 3 laptops arsenic portion of a national investigation, Forbes reported connected Friday.

Many modern Windows computers trust connected full-disk encryption, called BitLocker, which is enabled by default. This benignant of exertion should forestall anyone but the instrumentality proprietor from accessing the information if the machine is locked and powered off. 

But, by default, BitLocker betterment keys are uploaded to Microsoft’s cloud, allowing the tech elephantine — and by hold instrumentality enforcement — to entree them and usage them to decrypt drives encrypted with BitLocker, arsenic with the lawsuit reported by Forbes.

The lawsuit progressive respective radical suspected of fraud related to the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance programme successful Guam, a U.S. land successful the Pacific. Local quality outlet Pacific Daily News covered the lawsuit past year, reporting that a warrant had been served to Microsoft successful narration to the suspects’ hard drives. Kandit News, different section Guam quality outlet, also reported successful October that the FBI requested the warrant six months aft seizing the 3 laptops encrypted with BitLocker. 

A spokesperson for Microsoft did not instantly respond to a petition for remark by TechCrunch. Microsoft told Forbes that the institution sometimes provides BitLocker betterment keys to authorities, having received an mean of 20 specified requests per year. 

Apart from the privateness risks of handing betterment keys to a company, Johns Hopkins prof and cryptography adept Matthew Green raised the imaginable scenario wherever malicious hackers compromise Microsoft’s unreality infrastructure — thing that has happened several times successful caller years — and get entree to these betterment keys. The hackers would inactive request carnal entree to the hard drives to usage the stolen betterment keys

“It’s 2026 and these concerns person been known for years,” Green wrote successful a post connected Bluesky. “Microsoft’s inability to unafraid captious lawsuit keys is starting to marque it an outlier from the remainder of the industry.”