cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/75316353
Why does bitlocker password only need a recovery key?
It’s password only, non tpm and it still creates a recovery key. Why tho?
linux doesn’t do that when using LUKS encryption. trust me I’d love to switch, but can’t.
It’s a design decision and one which is probably about right for many situations. TPM chips are not perfect, and there are a lot of situations which can cause them to fail or the hardware around them can fail (e.g. the motherboard). With the end result being that the data would be rendered unreadable. So a recovery key is a trade-off between confidentiality and accessibility.
The design of the recovery key itself is also fairly good as a backup protector goes. The key is long and complex enough that brute forcing it is hard enough and would require long enough that it is functionally impossible. If your concern is that the recovery key could leak, the easy answer is “don’t write it down”. You could simply choose not to store it and while it would be a theoretical attack on the confidentiality of your data, practically it’s a non-issue. But, for those folks who feel that having an unlock code written down somewhere is an acceptable risk while mitigating the risk of the TPM breaking and rendering the disk unreadable, it’s a good solution. And I can personally attest to the usefulness in a corporate environment. People do dumb things with laptops all the time. And no matter how much we might tell people to use the network/cloud storage which is off the system and backed up regularly, there is always a parade of people whose system just died and contains the only copy of important project data.
It’s important to remember that security is a long series of compromises between confidentiality, integrity and accessibility. All three are important. And you have to find the spot in the nexus of those factors which works for your situation.
thanks for ur answer, it made some stuff a lot clearer, but the thing is in the video tutorial he’s using password only(no tpm) and it still requires you to create a recovery key, which makes no sense yk, since you’re using a password to encryt it.
on Linux with luks, it never asked for me to save a recovery key.
the thing is in the video tutorial he’s using password only(no tpm) and it still requires you to create a recovery key
Never watched the video, so I’m just answering for the general case. Even with just a password, the recovery key serves a similar function. It’s a fail-safe if the primary protector is lost. It’s entirely possible that the password being setup will be given to a user and IT will still need a way in, if that password gets lost/changed.
on Linux with luks, it never asked for me to save a recovery key.
Ok, and? Yup, LUKS uses different defaults. Don’t get too caught up on “Linux does it this way”. Both ways have valid reasons and the Microsoft developers and LUKS developers picked different defaults. If you want, you can create a recovery.key file on LUKS. If you are using TPM as your primary protector, I’d actually recommend you follow Microsoft’s lead on this. If that TPM chip (or the motherboard it’s attached to) dies, you’re kinda fucked. If you are using a password, this is less of an issue. assuming you have that password stored safely somewhere not on that system.
oh ok, tysm I finally get it now
assuming you have that password stored safely somewhere not on that system.
well you have to have it in ur head, since it asks for it everytime you boot in
sorry if not
how is it not?! it’s literally right up this community’s alley. lol
It technically doesn’t even need the recovery key.