I had known about BitLocker before, but I’m recently pondering that if a disk currently being encrypted and protected by BitLocker, without unlocked, at this time, the computer gets infected with ransomware, will the ransomware re-encrypt the disk’s data?
For your question, the exact answer is No. You can rest assured that ransomware will completely ignore the unlock drive protected by BitLocker. So, there are only a small possibility ransomware encrypt files in a drive locked by BitLocker. Refer to the article is BitLocker Drive Encryption Windows 11 safe to know about the BitLocker’s high security for protecting data.
Ransomware primarily spreads through emails and Trojan horse programs over networks. Its operational method involves encrypting files using various encryption algorithms, making them inaccessible to users unless they possess the decryption key.
However, when you have already locked the data on your disk using BitLocker, it will not be susceptible to infection while in an unlocked state. From the perspective of the malware, an unencrypted partition differs from a regular one. Without decryption, the data remains scrambled, rendering the malware unable to identify target files for infection.
Even with BitLocker protection, ransomware can infect your vulnerable system in several scenarios as well.
Firstly, Ransomware can bypass BitLocker, format a BitLocker-locked drive without requiring the password, and thus disable BitLocker protection on your drive.
Moreover, if the ransomware gains full access to your operating system, nothing can prevent it from encrypting your data, including data on BitLocker-encrypted volumes. The ransomware can simply encrypt the already-encrypted data once again, with its own key this time.
Additionally, if you decrypt your drive when your computer is infected by ransomware, you will put your data on your drive at the risk of being encrypted by ransomware.
Lastly, some people may make ransomware using BitLocker. As BitLocker employs robust encryption algorithms, making it more challenging to do with BitLocker ransomware decrypt.
For comprehensive protection against ransomware, it’s advisable to follow Microsoft’s official guidelines about Protect your PC from ransomware. At the same time, apart from encryption with BitLocker, it’s essential to regularly back up critical data to mitigate the impact of ransomware attacks and potential losses.
Rest assured, BitLocker Drive Encryption on Windows is widely considered of highly secure safeguarding utility among numbers of encryption tools, offering a strong defense for valuable data.
Lydia
Let's start with the conclusion: Yes, you can read, write and decrypt data stored in Bitlocker-protected drive on Windows Home edition as long as you have the appropriate key.
Benjamin
BitLocker is actually a reliable data encryption tool. However, the frequent prompt to enter the BitLocker recovery password is also a very disturbing thing. Now I’ll tell you what can trigger BitLocker and How to avoid it.
Lydia
It is right that Windows 11 Home does not come with BitLocker encryption. But Windows 11 Home users can access the BitLocker encrypted drive with password. If you want to encrypt the USB flash drive or externa hard drive, 2 workable solutions are listed here.
Michael
