Detections
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18.10.10.1.6 Ensure 'Choose how BitLocker-protected fixed drives can be recovered: Omit recovery options from the BitLocker setup wizard' is set to 'Enabled: True'

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Information

This policy setting allows you to control how BitLocker-protected fixed data drives are recovered in the absence of the required credentials. This policy setting is applied when you turn on BitLocker.

Select 'Omit recovery options from the BitLocker setup wizard' to prevent users from specifying recovery options when they enable BitLocker on a drive. This means that you will not be able to specify which recovery option to use when you enable BitLocker, instead BitLocker recovery options for the drive are determined by the policy setting.

The recommended state for this setting is: Enabled: True (checked).

Administrators should always have a safe, secure way to access encrypted data in the event users cannot access their data.

Additionally, as with any authentication method, a drive can be compromised by guessing or finding the authentication information used to access the drive.

To use BitLocker, a Data Recovery Agent will need to be configured for fixed drives. To recover a drive will require highly-controlled access to the Data Recovery Agent private key.

Solution

To establish the recommended configuration via GP, set the following UI path to Enabled: True (checked):

Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\BitLocker Drive Encryption\Fixed Data Drives\Choose how BitLocker-protected fixed drives can be recovered: Omit recovery options from the BitLocker setup wizard

Note: This Group Policy path is provided by the Group Policy template VolumeEncryption.admx/adml that is included with the Microsoft Windows 7 & Server 2008 R2 Administrative Templates (or newer).

Impact:

The ability to manually select recovery options for fixed drives will not be presented to the user in the BitLocker setup wizard.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/25561

Item Details

References: CSCv7|13.6

Plugin: Windows

Control ID: 2df5aeec7c0dd5a3c094c765eedcc11adc525577de64e064469ecde6e5ac5891