Bitlocker
All College-managed Windows devices are encrypted with Bitlocker as an added layer of protection to your personal data.
Bitlocker prevents access to your hard drive, should anyone tamper with your desktop or if someone tries to bypass Windows Authentication with a hacking tool on a USB stick.
What is Bitlocker?
Bitlocker is a Windows 7/10 feature that encrypts the C drive and ensures Windows boots without any USB device bypassing authentication and preventing any unauthorised access like removing the hard drive/SSD and docking it on another device. Recovering data from an unencrypted device is a trivial process that poses personal data at great risk, whereas encryption, at the current state of the art, is virtually unbreakable without the 48-character security key.
I'm being asked to setup a Bitlocker pin - what do I do?
You will be prompted by a popup to set a pin. The pin should consist of 8 numerical characters.
Once you have set this, you will be prompted to reenter this pin each time you restart your device. You will not be required to enter the pin if you close your laptop lid, or just log off, without switching the device off.
What happens if I forget my pin?
You can visit our Bitkey recovery website or reset it using your Microsoft account.
You can find out more on our Bitkey recovery webpage.