Bitlocker enabled itself on Windows 10 Home edition without a notice and without permission

Anonymous
2022-06-29T22:51:13+00:00

After three years of owning a Dell Inspiron 13 (Windows Home) the computer somehow enabled Bitlocker on its own and encrypted my C: drive. Since I did not activate Bitlocker, I don't have the keys to decrypt the drive. My Microsoft account does not list any keys in it so there is no way to recover the keys as far as I know. Therefore none of the published solutions I have seen can work because they all assume that I have access to the keys. I see many similar complaints online (at least since 2018) and hundreds of "likes" so this appears to be a relatively common problem.

When booting, I see a message titled "BitLocker recovery" and it asks for the recovery key. It then says to "try your work or school account at: aka.ms/aadrecoverykey."

This suggests that the key may be associated with some active directory domain away from my computer. However, the admin account on this computer has, to my knowledge, never logged into an active directory domain, although non-admin users have. And, if the Amin account has connected to a Active Directory somewhere, I sure as heck did not give them a permission to encrypt my drive and lock me out of my computer, and give the key to some third party "work or school" account. If this is what happened, Microsoft, you have a serious security issue where third parties can effectively encrypt hard drives without permission using Microsoft's own tools. That is ransomware - without the ransom. But, this is still just a theory vaguely supported by this link https://hardsoft-support.kayako.com/article/99-windows-10-bitlocker-turns-on-without-a-notice

Here is a quote from the post: "Dell and Lenovo systems that ship with the Windows 10 operating system and are equipped with Trusted Platform Module (TPM) capability will have Microsoft BitLocker encryption enabled from the factory. It has been found that once the device is registered to a Active Directory domain - Office 365 Azure AD, Windows 10 automatically encrypts the system drive. You find this once you reboot your computer and are then prompted for the BitLocker key."

Since I don't know what possible organization could have encrypted the drive, and since I don't have admin access to them, the instructions in the article don't apply.

The laptop is Dell Inspiron 13 7370 - which I don't even think has a TPM chip built in it. BIOS is version 1.20.0. ePSA build is 4306.13 UEFI ROM.

So, Microsoft, how does this get fixed?

P.S. My other computers have Win10 Pro and and they have Bitlocker turned on, but this computer intentionally did not have Bitlocker turned on - and it was not supposed to be possible to turn on bitlocker on a Win10 Home edition. I am mentioning this to highlight that I did not "accidentally" trigger the Bitlocker being turned on - especially because it requires many steps and confirmations. The drive was simply encrypted one day with permission from me.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Security and privacy

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-02-17T07:58:51+00:00

    This recently happened to me too but in Windows 11.

    It was a MSI laptop and i checked bitlocker after windows installation to make sure bitlocker was disabled so i can access my files if the laptop stops working for a hardware failure, windows update or any windows shinnanigan making it impossible to boot. And bitlocker was DISABLED in all drives.

    To my surprise today i upgraded my bios and windows asked me for my bitlocker key because it detected some security change or something. **** is going on, i never enabled this ****.

    Thank god the key was saved in my MS account (without my knowledge too) and i could access the system again, but this is **** stupid.

    I DONT **** WANT MY DRIVES ENCRYPTED AT ALL. And making it so it enables itself without user knownledge is even more stupid.

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  2. Anonymous
    2023-12-18T20:42:28+00:00

    skip the info on bitlocker and if you read down to the bottom of this ms kb link , you will see , on home its about device encryption and

    its only on some supported devcies and if you log into a microsoft account

    Device encryption in Windows - Microsoft Support

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  3. Anonymous
    2023-12-18T20:30:24+00:00

    i was only showing you proof that ya , device encryption is on home and bitlocker is pro, but only some makes and models have device encryption , some lenovo too, new ones, if you read the asus support page, see click here for home device encryption how to , and here for pro bitlicker, read better before you reply back , thanks.

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  4. Anonymous
    2023-12-18T20:27:45+00:00

    no **** shurlock, if you read my reply it has all the information, i said its only on some models, and makes, for Now,

    so far, and i also told you microsoft is reocmemding it to OEM's going foarward,

    google your system model and read your user manual , if it supports it its in the Manual, if you dont see it , like i said your system does not support it , or the option to turn it on and off would be there,

    has nothing to do with asus , if you look on google , you will find instructions on many brands, thats the one i picked as it was on top;, and it has Nothing to do with ASUS, da, stop wasting my time, i feel im repeating myself now, thanks,

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  5. Neil D 34,285 Reputation points Volunteer Moderator
    2023-12-18T20:08:09+00:00

    That may be the case for an Asus machine but not for Lenovo. There is no Device Encryption in Settings > Privacy & security.

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