Microsoft to disable hardware encryption for BitLocker

[exetras]

From the configuration page of Bitlocker

 

Quote

If you want to use BitLocker on a computer without a TPM, select Allow BitLocker without a compatible TPM. In this mode, a password or USB drive is required for startup. The USB drive stores the startup key that is used to encrypt the drive. When the USB drive is inserted, the startup key is authenticated and the operating system drive is accessible. If the USB drive is lost or unavailable, BitLocker recovery is required to access the drive.

On a computer with a compatible TPM, additional authentication methods can be used at startup to improve protection for encrypted data. When the computer starts, it can use:

• only the TPM
• insertion of a USB flash drive containing the startup key
• the entry of a 4-digit to 20-digit personal identification number (PIN)
• a combination of the PIN and the USB flash drive

There are four options for TPM-enabled computers or devices:

• Configure TPM startup

  • Allow TPM
  • Require TPM
  • Do not allow TPM

• Configure TPM startup PIN

  • Allow startup PIN with TPM
  • Require startup PIN with TPM
  • Do not allow startup PIN with TPM

• Configure TPM startup key

  • Allow startup key with TPM
  • Require startup key with TPM
  • Do not allow startup key with TPM

• Configure TPM startup key and PIN

  • Allow TPM startup key with PIN
  • Require startup key and PIN with TPM
  • Do not allow TPM startup key with PIN

With TPM you can unlock the data without the TPM as long as you have one of the 3 other unlock options.

 

From my understanding T2 is locked and set to the board, which is not repair friendly for both personal or business.

[Bacon soup]

The boomers at the top of the FBI are not pleased

[yolosnail]

Just now, jagdtigger said:

There isnt a reason i can think of to have a separate chip for encryption in non-business stuff. SW based encryption is pretty good nowadays and more than enough to secure your device. No-one will bother to try and crack the encryption, its just doesnt worth the time and resources. They just wipe the device and sell it...

Exactly, all I was saying was if they are forcing hardware encryption on their users, there should at least be a way to get to your data if that hardware fails

[2DollaKoala]

14 hours ago, LAwLz said:

I'm not following you here. You disabled the TPM in BIOS, and then your computer recognized the TPM?

When I got my new motherboard, I also bought a separate TPM 2.0 module that attached to the motherboard and installed it before setting up Windows. Then once Windows 10 was set up, I turned on BitLocker. Before I installed the latest BIOS update for my board I learned that my board allowed for BitLocker to work without the physical module. I. After I disabled the motherboard's UEFI setting for that, Windows to recognize and use the hardware TPM-S 2.0 module I had originally installed.

[2DollaKoala]

14 hours ago, LAwLz said:

This will not change the TPM requirement, or anything related to TPM really. This is just a change to where the encryption is done. The rest should stay the same.

So how did BitLocker work without the TPM module? That's how I learned about TPM on my last build. I wanted to use BitLocker and couldn't untill I bought the little TPM thing for that computer.

[2DollaKoala]

14 hours ago, LAwLz said:

ThatFrom what I know, TPM-S is just ASRock's branding on TPM. Other than the name on the box, it's the same as other TPMs.

My mistake, I edited that question. What I mean is that my motherboard has a built in thing in the UEFI that allows be to use BitLocker without a TPM module installed and that's what Windows saw and used as opposed to the TPM module it now sees and uses once I turned off that setting in AsRock's UEFI.

[dalekphalm]

1 hour ago, 2DollaKoala said:

So how did BitLocker work without the TPM module? That's how I learned about TPM on my last build. I wanted to use BitLocker and couldn't untill I bought the little TPM thing for that computer.

You have to manually disable TPM requirement for BitLocker to work without a TPM. Once you do that, you can setup BitLocker in 2 ways:

1. USB Drive - the encryption key is stored on the USB Drive, and is required to be inserted into the computer to boot Windows

2. Passcode - you need to enter a passcode to boot.

 

You'd have to manually dig through the settings to turn off the TPM requirement, but it's possible to do.

[2DollaKoala]

8 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

You have to manually disable TPM requirement for BitLocker to work without a TPM. Once you do that, you can setup BitLocker in 2 ways:

1. USB Drive - the encryption key is stored on the USB Drive, and is required to be inserted into the computer to boot Windows

2. Passcode - you need to enter a passcode to boot.

 

You'd have to manually dig through the settings to turn off the TPM requirement, but it's possible to do.

I'm confused. My new board worked with BitLocker without the TPM because of something built into the board. I had to disable that for it to work with my TPM. No USB drive in either instance and I was able to remove the Passcode thing that it wants me to do.

[dalekphalm]

6 minutes ago, 2DollaKoala said:

I'm confused. My new board worked with BitLocker without the TPM because of something built into the board. I had to disable that for it to work with my TPM. No USB drive in either instance and I was able to remove the Passcode thing that it wants me to do.

What's the model of Motherboard you have? It likely had a TPM installed directly onto the motherboard.

[Kisai]

On 9/29/2019 at 4:10 PM, DrMacintosh said:

 

However going the software route posses an equally troubling suite of problems. Namely, the protection of decryption keys from local or remote attackers. 

 

That's what the Intel SGX instructions are for. But that's not without it's own weakness, but better than nothing and storing it straight into memory.

 

Like, the game hackers/modders all know this already. There isn't a single piece of memory in the OS that is untouchable by any program in Windows. By design.

[Kisai]

1 hour ago, 2DollaKoala said:

I'm confused. My new board worked with BitLocker without the TPM because of something built into the board. I had to disable that for it to work with my TPM. No USB drive in either instance and I was able to remove the Passcode thing that it wants me to do.

 

TPM 1.2 and TPM 2.0 are different. 

 

https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln312590/tpm-1-2-vs-2-0-features?lang=en

 

If you already had a TPM device on the MB and the device you wanted to use had a different TPM version, it likely can only use one of them. I've never personally encountered this, so I couldn't say. Many TPM 1.2 devices can be upgraded to 2.0 with a firmware update, but you have to turn bitlocker off and "clear ownership" to do it, which means software like MS Office will complain.

[LAwLz]

13 hours ago, yolosnail said:

I am of the opinion that hardware encryption should be optional, unless there is a way for the owner to decrypt the data in the event that the hardware encryption failed.

In MacOS, encryption is optional. Filevault is not turned on by default.

 

 

13 hours ago, yolosnail said:

Would it be that difficult for Apple to offer an external device that contains a T2 chip that can 'back up' the encryption keys on the internal T2 chip which can then be stored in a secure location?

Sadly, yes. The entire point of having the T2 is so that part of the key is stored in a way where it's inaccessible. MacOS has no way of reading what's on the T2 chip by design. This is to prevent someone from just booting the computer up and then extracting the encryption key.

 

 

13 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

There isnt a reason i can think of to have a separate chip for encryption in non-business stuff. SW based encryption is pretty good nowadays and more than enough to secure your device. No-one will bother to try and crack the encryption, its just doesnt worth the time and resources. They just wipe the device and sell it...

1) The reason why we should encrypt everything and not just "business stuff" is because having an encrypted portion and a non-encrypted portion is just a bad idea in general when we can have everything encrypted. People are forgetful and will place business documents in unencrypted non-business places. Things like folders which hold temporary files might end up on the unencrypted part of the drive, which means you will be able to find business documents that should be encrypted, completely unencrypted.

 

2) The reason why it needs a separate chip is to enforce policies (like "only 3 password guesses each 10 seconds") and to prevent attacks on the OS from exposing the encryption keys.

 

3) Full disk encryption is simple, effective and works well. It has essentially 0 drawbacks and there really shouldn't be any reason NOT to use it.

 

 

 

13 hours ago, exetras said:

With TPM you can unlock the data without the TPM as long as you have one of the 3 other unlock options.

 

From my understanding T2 is locked and set to the board, which is not repair friendly for both personal or business.

You can unlock bitlocker without TPM if you have a recovery USB or the recovery key, yes.

But it's worth mentioning that both of these options makes Bitlocker dramatically less secure than Filevault with T2.

 

 

12 hours ago, yolosnail said:

Exactly, all I was saying was if they are forcing hardware encryption on their users, there should at least be a way to get to your data if that hardware fails

They are not forcing it.

[jagdtigger]

18 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

2) The reason why it needs a separate chip is to enforce policies (like "only 3 password guesses each 10 seconds") and to prevent attacks on the OS from exposing the encryption keys.

So they will attack the chip itself instead, or suck off the chips from the board that contain the data and brute force it just like how they would do it with SW based. These black boxes(be it TPM or this crap) always full of weak points because companies prefer the "security through obscurity" approach. Its a matter of time before it gets rekt by some hacker(like the latest jailbreak method for iphones). Plus by the time they break even the SW based encryption it wont be any use because the victim had already changed mission critical logins...... (Or revoked the per device password's linked to that particular device.)

Edited October 1, 2019 by jagdtigger

[LAwLz]

7 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

So they will attack the chip itself instead, or suck off the chips from the board that contain the data and brute force it just like how they would do it with SW based.

What do you mean when you say "attack the chip itself" and "suck off the chip from the board"?

 

8 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

These black boxes(be it TPM or this crap) always full of weak points because companies prefer the "security through obscurity" approach.

This is not "security through obscurity" at all.

 

8 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Its a matter of time before it gets rekt by some hacker(like the latest jailbreak method for iphones).

Well nobody says that it's perfect. However, "it's not perfect" is not an excuse for not doing anything for security. All encryption potentially has weaknesses. But that isn't stopping us from trying to perfect it.

 

9 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Plus by the time they break even the SW based encryption it wont be any use because the victim had already changed mission critical logins...... (Or revoked the per device password's linked to that particular device.)

What are you talking about? If someone steals your laptop then you can't change or revoke the password. We're talking about full disk encryption here, not some online password. It's two very different things.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

22 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

What are you talking about? If someone steals your laptop then you can't change or revoke the password. We're talking about full disk encryption here, not some online password. It's two very different things.

I kinda get where tigger's coming from though.  If someone makes it past the encryption and can boot into the OS, the machine may have saved logins of sites, corporate networks, mailboxes etc. 

Having the time to change the passwords of all those, or to revoke that machine's access, can make a world of difference in how hard your digital life can be compromised by brute-forcing the encryption of the laptop. 

[2DollaKoala]

7 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

What's the model of Motherboard you have? It likely had a TPM installed directly onto the motherboard.

It's an ASRock X470 Taichi Ultimate and the setting I should have looked up earlier had to do with AMD's fTPM. A firmware implementation of a separate TPM module.

[LAwLz]

4 minutes ago, Captain Chaos said:

I kinda get where tigger's coming from though.  If someone makes it past the encryption and can boot into the OS, the machine may have saved logins of sites, corporate networks, mailboxes etc. 

Having the time to change the passwords of all those, or to revoke that machine's access, can make a world of difference in how hard your digital life can be compromised by brute-forcing the encryption of the laptop. 

Yeah but the point of FDE is to protect your laptop and local files. Not to protect your online accounts.

It feels a bit weird bringing up online accounts when talking about offline security since they are so different. 

[TechyBen]

21 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Not sure what you mean by "serial number checks". Can you elaborate?

 

Again, not sure what you mean when you reference serial numbers. Do you mean the T2 chip check serial numbers of individual components and then breaks if it detects a non-authorized serial or something along those lines?

 

Yes, and the way Veracrypt does it means someone can take the drive out, plug it into another machine and brute force it. Veracrypt puts 100% of the security on the passcode, which is not something feasible for everyday consumers. People want something like a 4-10 digit/character PIN/passcode. They do not want to type in 20-30 characters whenever they start their computer. Therefore, you need something which prevents brute force attacks. How do you do that? By tying the decryption to the specific laptop, and then put in a safeguard which prevents too many attempts in a certain time window.

This is how Bitlocker works too.

 

They don't, what?

 

What do you mean? I don't understand what you mean by "without programming access", and I don't understand why you think the T2 would prevent booting from a new SSD if it were put in.

 

Maybe I have missed something, but can you please explain how the T2 chip prevents repairs?

Are you saying the T2 monitors the serial number of components and if it detects a new one it just bricks the entire machine? I find that hard to believe.

 

Can you please link me to a source which proves that the T2 checks the serial number of things like the screen, and then that it breaks something if it detects a new serial? I can't find anything of the sorts.

Sorry it's the Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/12/18077166/apple-macbook-air-mac-mini-t2-chip-security-repair-replacement-tool

If Apple cared for security + repairs, the T2 chip would delete/not access the password if repairs were done. It could delete the data (key). Instead, it bricks the laptop.

 

Thus it's not about (only) consumer security. It's about controlling the entire chain. I'm not sure I'd want that at this point (cost/repairs wise). If these things cost $10 each, then go crazy, and shred them like paper. But at $1000+ I'd rather it not brick due to one hot/cracked chip. Considering most the computers I've had I could swap out the CPU, most phones the screen/battery... once we hit 100% unrepairability, we need a VERY good reason for it.

 

Yes, you could brute force a VeryaCrypt partition, possibly. You could also take a wrench to the knees of the Apple laptop users... but I don't see Apple selling kneepads with the laptops.

[TechyBen]

16 hours ago, yolosnail said:

Exactly, all I was saying was if they are forcing hardware encryption on their users, there should at least be a way to get to your data if that hardware fails

Yep. Theoretically nothing stops them having an option to copy a key over. A backup vault etc. Yes, I can backup data. But why can I not backup the key? (Windows use to offer this option)

[dalekphalm]

4 hours ago, Captain Chaos said:

I kinda get where tigger's coming from though.  If someone makes it past the encryption and can boot into the OS, the machine may have saved logins of sites, corporate networks, mailboxes etc. 

Having the time to change the passwords of all those, or to revoke that machine's access, can make a world of difference in how hard your digital life can be compromised by brute-forcing the encryption of the laptop. 

What does that have to do with T2 chips or TPM’s? That exact same thing is still a problem with software encryption. 

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

11 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

What does that have to do with T2 chips or TPM’s?

 

Absolutely nothing.  Tigger specifically said "Plus by the time they break even the SW based encryption it wont be any use", to which Lawlz replied that that won't do anything if someone steals the laptop. 

I'm not sure how you got the idea that this was somehow about T2 and TPM. 

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, TechyBen said:

Sorry it's the Verge: https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/12/18077166/apple-macbook-air-mac-mini-t2-chip-security-repair-replacement-tool

Okay I take back quite a few of the statements I've made in this thread.

I am totally all for things like full disk encryption which stores the key in a separate chip (like a TPM). But that part about verifying serials of parts is just a dick move. The fact that they can fix it with some proprietary tool also shows that it's possible to do but they don't allow it. Unlike for example extracting the key from the T2, which is not possible, not even for Apple (by design).

 

 

2 hours ago, TechyBen said:

But why can I not backup the key? (Windows use to offer this option)

Because the entire point of the T2 is to a separate system which is inaccessible from the main OS/computer. You can't backup the key stored inside the T2 because there is no way of accessing it. If you could extract the key, then that means someone getting their hands on your laptop could also extract it, thus defeating the point.

[TechyBen]

1 minute ago, LAwLz said:

Okay I take back quite a few of the statements I've made in this thread.

I am totally all for things like full disk encryption which stores the key in a separate chip (like a TPM). But that part about verifying serials of parts is just a dick move. The fact that they can fix it with some proprietary tool also shows that it's possible to do but they don't allow it. Unlike for example extracting the key from the T2, which is not possible, not even for Apple (by design).

 

 

Because the entire point of the T2 is to a separate system which is inaccessible from the main OS/computer. You can't backup the key stored inside the T2 because there is no way of accessing it. If you could extract the key, then that means someone getting their hands on your laptop could also extract it, thus defeating the point.

Yeah. I'm all for (customer aware) entire chain encryption (AMD have been doing memory <-> CPU encryption to mask even listening devices! ) but not the type thant cannot be turned off/reset (in the case of the T2 taking over everything).

 

Apple could even offer a mail in and return service for reprogramming the chip. I understand they wish to prevent stolen goods... but serial numbers on cars have been a thing for decades... why go full Judge Dread on the product line? I'd rather someone steal my phone, and salvage some parts for a couple of $$$ than it be a brick if I sneeze wrong (got a Note 9).

 

I guess it's just seeing so many people with cracked screens on Apple devices, and then really hating that they (sometimes) make it so hard to repair, and unlike Samsung, at least I can get an entire device as a cheap replacement. LOL!

[jagdtigger]

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

This is not "security through obscurity" at all.

Can you review the code running on it?

 

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

What do you mean when you say "attack the chip itself" and "suck off the chip from the board"?

Attack the chip=fuzz the hell out of it until they find a way in. Suck the chip off the board= desoldar the storage chips.

 

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

not doing anything for security

OFC not, im just saying there is no need for the T2 chip in consumer devices.  Especially in its current form.

 

7 hours ago, LAwLz said:

If someone steals your laptop then you can't change or revoke the password.

I meant passwords for online services like google where you can generate a per device password and delete it without affecting any other device. Where this cant be done the only thing to do is to change the password.

[2DollaKoala]

16 hours ago, LAwLz said:

In MacOS, encryption is optional. Filevault is not turned on by default.

While it's not on by default, when a user is setting up a brand new Mac for the first time macOS prompts the user to use it and has the option enabled by default. The user has to choose to not use FileVault in order to proceed with their computers setup. But to be fair, this window doesn't come up automatically for all systems configurations. 

 

https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2014/10/25/new-filevault-2-enablement-option-in-yosemites-setup-assistant/