Windows7How

Windows 7 BitLocker To Go

December 7, 2009

A good idea from Windows Vista has been brought into Windows 7 by Microsoft and made better – and actually useful as well. It is (and was) designed to encrypt your hard drive to protect it from thieves, should they get their hands on your precious machine – an important feature for a notebook PC. It was known as BitLocker.

Now, think about the incredibly ubiquitous USB key drive – they come in so many shapes, sizes, colors and designs and can be found in almost every corner of the planet. They give them away for free at shops in many cities everywhere. They are also being used more and more to transfer data easily between locations. This means that they are vulnerable since virtually anyone is prepared to use one at any time. If the one with some important data were to get lost, it could easily be read within minutes of the discovery, the data stolen, and then it returned to Lost & Found. You wouldn’t even know it had happened. It goes without saying that having some security on a USB drive would be of certain benefit.

The two concepts above seem to be made for each other, right? Well, Microsoft calls it BitLocker To Go and it is now being shipped with Windows 7. BitLocker has been extended to encompass USB key drives now and it is actually well worth using – though it’s not perfect, but what is?

It works by encrypting the data on your USB key drive and requiring a password to access it. (Do NOT forget that password! Most USB drives aren’t fit to be paperweights.) As soon as you plug it in to a USB port on a Windows 7 PC, you are prompted for your password. For other OS versions – Windows Vista and XP – the BitLocker application installs a special compatibility reader during the encryption process. This reader allows Vista and XP to read the encrypted data; the reader simply takes over when the USB drive is connected and prompts the user for a password. Once the password is used, the USB drive can be used.

This data encryption tool can be used in just about any situation – home, office, school, etc. Administrators of any sized corporate network can even set a policy for the Domain(s) which requires all USB devices being written to on any networked machine to encrypt the data using BitLocker. They can even set the basis for the password traits.

All in all, a rather useful application from the Windows 7 engineers. It helps to extend security to the portable devices which have become so common today. Most companies do not usually have very good control over USB drives, so it is nice that Microsoft has included yet another tool to keep your information away from the wrong hands.

Now that you know what it is, you will need to know how to use it. So, in Part II the use of BitLocker To Go will be explained – it’s very simple, actually.

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Tags: BitLocker, domain, encrypt, encrypt data, encryption tool, password, protect, security, USB drives, usb key drive, vista, windows 7, windows xp, xp