Switchfast Blog - The Future of IT
Microsoft Claims BitLocker Security Hole is Only Dangerous in “Highly Unlikely Situations”
Wednesday, December 09, 2009 by Michael Holley
Ever since German security company, Fraunhofer SIT, published a
paper outlining a vulnerability in Microsoft's BitLocker encryption
application, Microsoft has received intense pressure from the blog
community to comment. On Monday, the public got its comments via
the official Windows Security Blog.
Microsoft's Paul Cooke downplayed the "vulnerability"
significantly, stating that the claim is not even really a flaw in
BitLocker, but a way to circumvent the OS's security altogether.
Furthermore, users would only be at risk in situations that are
highly unlikely to occur in the real world, since a hacker would
have to gain physical access to a user's computer on two separate
occasions in order to exploit the system. Essentially, Cooke is
claiming that the exploit is both highly unlikely to occur, and
that if it did, it's taking advantage of something that BitLocker
was never designed to protect in the first place.
That being said, Cooke does acknowledge that the German
discovery is a legitimate concern, if on a small scale, and
represents another reason why despite the security advances
Microsoft has made, everyone still needs to take security
precautions on their own, both through educated caution and
third-party software.
"Even with the great enhancements made in Windows 7 such as
BitLocker To Go, it still remains that BitLocker alone is not a
complete security solution. IT professionals as well as users must
be diligent when protecting IT resources and the best protection
against these sorts of targeted attacks requires more than just
technology: it requires end user education and physical security
also play important roles."
You can read the original blog post here.
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Switchfast Technologies
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& Consulting
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