Microsoft has confirmed a new bug that is related to BitLocker. This issue affects Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices, including the latest versions.
Windows may unexpectedly display a message about BitLocker settings
Users may see a message displayed on the Control Panel page for BitLocker encryption on their computer. The message reads: “For your safety, some settings are managed by your administrator.”
According to a support page called KB5051141 Microsoft websiteThe message is displayed on PCs that have BitLocker enabled. More specifically, the message may appear on unmanaged devices that use the Trusted Platform Module (TPM).
A managed device is one that is controlled by the IT department of a company, organization, or school. This may cause some confusion among users, especially if they are the sole user of a PC, such as a home computer. Naturally, people may worry whether they have been hacked, or whether their system has been hit by a virus. Hey, my computer is not managed, why am I seeing this message?
relax! If you get this message on your computer, there is no need to panic, it will not harm your PC, because it is not an error. It seems that Windows is reporting the situation incorrectly, and that’s why Microsoft has published documentation to reassure people that this is a known issue, i.e. there is nothing wrong with your PC.
As far as fixing the problem goes, there is currently no way to remove the annoying message. Microsoft says it is working on a fix to resolve the error.
That being said, BitLocker has been around for a long time. Last year, it was said that SSDs were reportedly slowed down by 45%. And then there was a problem that was caused by a faulty Windows update that sent the PC to boot into BitLocker recovery. This issue, which also affected both Windows 10 and Windows 11, was resolved in August 2024. But everything did not go well with this.
More recently, a security researcher named Thomas Lambertz demonstrated the Bitpixie attack at the Chaos Communications Congress to show how easy it was to break BitLocker by taking advantage of Secure Boot’s encryption with a custom Linux system. He explained that this method is used by law enforcement agencies and companies like Cellebrite to gain access to encrypted PCs without the password. This vulnerability persists after 2022, which is quite worrying. This can essentially allow hackers to steal information very easily, especially from stolen laptops. Lambertz advised users to set a PIN for BitLocker in addition to their Windows PIN to ensure their data is safe from hackers. However, it is not possible to set a BitLocker PIN on Home editions of Windows. I recommend watching the video Here To learn more about the vulnerability.
It’s worth noting that BitLocker is enabled by default on clean Windows installations, this change was introduced as part of the Windows 11 24H2 feature update.
On a side note, Microsoft has released Windows security updates for January 2025, you can read Martin’s article for more details.
Thanks for reading..
