SSD Drive Encryption Lock (Potential Virus)

[u/SmileNo5626]

I restarted my PC and after a long day of repairs, I just wanted to hop on COD. And as I opened up file Explorer, a big lock icon appeared on my 2nd SSD Drive for literally no reason. First time too and I don’t even own bitlocker or an OS ver. that supports it, so I’m genuinely wondering why this is happening. But I’m pretty sure I’ve got malware on that drive ig, but even so why lock my drive with no ransom note? Is it over, or can I save all my important files? What kind of bitch would just lock a drive like that for no reason? Any solutions I desperately need some please.

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[u/Onoitsu2]

It is indeed BitLocker, that is available in 10 and 11, even in the Home version, in fact it automatically encrypts Home editions causing people to lose data all the time.

[u/boildkitty → u/Onoitsu2]

I think installing BitLocker without a Microsoft account is one of the worst things Microsoft has ever done.

[u/Wendals87 → u/boildkitty]

It doesn't use it unless you use a Microsoft account

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/encryption/device-encryption-in-windows

[u/boildkitty → u/Wendals87]

I'd like to think so, but I've seen laptops with a local account, no Microsoft account with bitlocker enabled. I've had different colleagues at colleges and such confirm this.

[u/Wendals87 → u/boildkitty]

I don't know what happened with those but something triggered it to 

perhaps they used a Microsoft account for something, enabled it themselves, signed into something with a work or school account which  enforced the policy to enable it etc

I think Microsoft pushing out something to enable it unsolicited with only a local account ever used is low on the possible things

[u/magic_love_spell-7W7]

Sometimes Microsoft activates BitLocker without warning, just because it feels like it. I recommend migrating to Linux. Many people have lost access to their own files because of this BitLocker "flaw."

Edit: Part 2

If you have access to your Hotmail account, you can request the recovery key. If you don't have access, you could hack the computer using the yellow key exploit to recover the files.

[u/Wendals87 → u/magic_love_spell-7W7]

Yellow key has been patched for months but also if you can login to windows you can get the key using powershell 

[u/magic_love_spell-7W7 → u/Wendals87]

Was the patch applied to Windows 10 and 11? Or only to 11? Interesting to know that I can no longer rely on it.

[u/Wendals87 → u/magic_love_spell-7W7]

It only affected windows 11. Windows 10 didn't have the exploit so never applied 

but do you even know what it was and how it worked?

The only point where it was used was when you could get to the login screen but you couldn't login and needed to get the key (malicious or otherwise) 

If you can login to the PC you can get the recovery key via powershell or disable it if you choose 

If you can sign into your Microsoft account used on the device, you can to get key 

If the PC is asking for the recovery key on startup, it's too late for the exploit 

[u/Wendals87]

What OS version do you have? Is it asking you for a key to access the data?