Source: www.techradar.com --- Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Microsoft is at the centre of a new dollop of controversy in the privacy and security stakes, with the revelation that the company automatically uploads a copy of the recovery key for its disk encryption on modern PCs to its own servers – apparently without informing the owner of the computer, or presenting a choice to opt out of said process. What does this mean for the average user, exactly? If you've got a newer PC which supports TPM and you're running Windows 10 – and you've tied the OS into your Microsoft account for login – then you're automatically protected by Microsoft's device encryption, meaning the data on your disk is encrypted by default for security. But as The Intercept reports, a copy of your encryption key is also uploaded to Microsoft's OneDrive cloud storage locker, and as the article notes, this is done with no choice to opt out, and probably without the user's knowledge. Of course, built-in disk encryption is a very commendable security feature, but there are potential issues with it – and backing a recovery key up to Microsoft's servers is an understandable step to take given the sort of problems that could occur. For example, some sort of hardware failure on your PC could mean the data on your hard drive ends up permanently lost if there's no recovery key backup accessible. However, as The Intercept points out, there are potential security risks to Microsoft keeping a copy of your key – such as for example ...
from Windows http://ift.tt/1ZBiO6v
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