Bitlocker is a form of full disk encryption which has been included in Windows since Windows Vista. Its use has become much more widespread since Windows 8 and 8.1 as it was previously only available in Ultimate and Enterprise editions of Windows Vista and Windows 7.

Bitlocker is widely recognised as a highly secure and convenient way to secure Windows based computers and protect them from Data loss should, for instance, a machine be lost or stolen. Afinite recommends the use of Bitlocker to all our clients where possible and seeks to configure it to operate transparently on all customer systems on all devices which will routinely leave an office location and could be subject to loss or theft and therefore open the user, organisation and their associated clients or related parties to a data loss.

Properly implemented, Bitlocker is transparent to the user in operation as it requires no special bootup password (subject to the presence of a TPM chip). Additional security layers can be added, such as the use of a PIN or USB key, or both PIN and USB key to add further protection if required.

A further benefit of Bitlocker in the Windows environment is that it can be managed and controlled by Active Directory, with encryption keys stored and managed in Active Directory as appropriate to enable the recovery of data from a device if necessary.