Microsoft gave FBI BitLocker encryption keys to unlock suspect’s laptop: Reports

Microsoft gave the FBI recovery keys to unlock encrypted data on three laptop hard drives as part of a federal investigation, Forbes reported on Friday.

Most modern Windows computers rely on disk-based encryption, known as BitLocker, which is enabled by default. This type of technology should prevent anyone except the owner of the device from accessing data if the computer is locked and turned off.

But, by default, BitLocker recovery keys are uploaded to Microsoft’s cloud, allowing the tech giant – and by extension laws – to find them and use them to write BitLocker-encrypted drives, as reported by Forbes.

The case involved several people suspected of fraud related to the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program in Guam, a US island in the Pacific. Local news Pacific Daily News covered the lawsuit last year, alleging that a warrant was issued to Microsoft in connection with the suspect hard drives. Kandit News, Guam’s alternative news from Guam, he said again in October that the FBI requested a warrant six months after seizing three BitLocker-encrypted laptops.

A Microsoft spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment by TechCrunch. Microsoft told Forbes that the company sometimes provides BitLocker recovery keys to executives, after receiving about 20 requests a year.

Apart from the privacy risks of providing recovery keys to a company, Johns Hopkins professor and author Matthew Green. he raised the possible events where malicious hackers compromise Microsoft’s cloud infrastructure – something it’s done several times in recent years – and find the keys to this recovery. Hackers would still need access to hard drives to use the stolen keys.

“It’s 2026 and these concerns have been known for years,” Green wrote in a post on Bluesky. “Microsoft’s failure to acquire key customer values ​​is beginning to make it a stranger to the rest of the industry.”