BitUnlocker: Leveraging Windows Recovery to Extract BitLocker Secrets

This talk reveals our in-depth vulnerability research on the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) and its implications for BitLocker, Windows’ cornerstone for data protection. We will walk through the research methodology, uncover new 0-day vulnerabilities, and showcase full-chain exploitations that enabled us to bypass BitLocker and extract all the protected data in several different ways. This talk goes beyond theory - as each vulnerability will be accompanied by a demo video showcasing the complete exploitation chain. To conclude the talk, we will share Microsoft’s key takeaways from this research and outline our approach to hardening WinRE and BitLocker. In Windows, the cornerstone of data protection is BitLocker, a Full Volume Encryption technology designed to secure sensitive data on disk. This ensures that even if an adversary gains physical access to the device, the data remains secure and inaccessible. One of the most critical aspects of any data protection feature is its ab