Newsletter Archives

• MS-DEFCON 2: Will September updates behave?

  Posted on September 8, 2022 at 02:45 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  

  ISSUE 19.36.1 • 2022-09-08

  

  By Susan Bradley

  Microsoft patches need to go back to school, too.

  Summer vacation is over, which means it’s time for youngsters to return to school. After several years of computer-based, pandemic-induced remote learning, it’s back to the classrooms. Meanwhile, Microsoft is getting ready to roll out the 22H2 releases of Windows 10 and Windows 11.

  I’m hoping that the engineers at Microsoft have had enough vacation, rest, and other downtime to ensure that September’s releases are nice, calm, and — well — boring. Unfortunately, August updates haven’t been quite so boring, and that’s not encouraging. Caution is my watchword, so I’m raising the MS-DEFCON level to 2.

  Anyone can read the full MS-DEFCON Alert (19.36.1, 2022-09-08).

  AskWoody Plus Alert, MS-DEFCON AskWoody Plus Newsletter, BitLocker, Patch Lady Posts, Windows

• BitLocker and the dead: The story of a successful transplant

  Posted on March 21, 2022 at 02:42 CDT by Ben Myers • Comment in the Forums

  HARDWARE

  

  By Ben Myers

  The CPU is the heart of a laptop, but we do the brain transplants here. BWA! HA! HA! HA!

  Recently, a long-time client who had moved several towns away called me in a panic. A two-year-old Lenovo Yoga laptop had failed.

  When I got my hands on the computer, I surmised that the probable cause was the third-party charger, which had blown out a circuit inside the laptop when the charger itself had failed. The charger did not function when plugged into another laptop, confirming my suspicions.

  Read the full story in our Plus Newsletter (19.12.0, 2022-03-21).

  Hardware BitLocker, Hardware, Newsletters, Repairs, SSD

• Are self-encrypting hard drives secure enough?

  Posted on October 7, 2019 at 01:00 CDT by Tracey Capen • Comment in the Forums

  ON SECURITY

  By Susan Bradley

  Microsoft has made a significant change in how its BitLocker encryption tool handles self-encrypting hard drives.

  Apparently, Microsoft doesn’t trust hardware-based drive security — should you?

  Read the full story in AskWoody Plus Newsletter 16.36.0 (2019-10-07).

  On Security AskWoody Plus Newsletter, BitLocker, Drive security, Self-encrypting hard drives

• If you use Win10 BitLocker on a solid state drive, you need to follow MS’s advice and re-activate it

  Posted on November 7, 2018 at 18:23 CST by woody • Comment in the Forums

  There’s a bug in most self-encrypting SSDs that leaves the data on the drives wide open. It’s complicated, but in theory anyone who can get at the hardware-encrypted SSD can retrieve all the data on it.

  One of the advantages of BitLocker is that it encrypts hard drives so they can’t be cracked, even if a miscreant gets physical access to it.

  By default, BitLocker running on Windows 10, set to encrypt a self-encrypting SSD, will flip over to the SSD’s built-in capabilities. Which, as we found out on Monday, is not secure.

  The solution? Run BitLocker to turn off the hardware protection, then run it again to turn on software protection.

  Computerworld Woody on Windows.

  Thx @gborn.

  Windows Patches/Security BitLocker, SSD

• Patch Lady – Bitlocker on 1803 pauses during updates

  Posted on August 16, 2018 at 20:44 CDT by Susan Bradley • Comment in the Forums

  https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/0e48536f-40ff-4046-bd08-ed4a39b4840f/bitlocker-automatically-suspending-during-updates?forum=win10itprosecurity&prof=required

  The symptoms are:

  Windows 10 on 1803

  Bitlocker enabled on a computer without a TPM

  Bitlocker is enabled with a password/phrase

  During the installation of updates Bitlocker will get paused and have to be reenabled.

  No resolution at this time – just know that you aren’t alone.

  Windows Patches/Security BitLocker, Patch Lady Posts
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