It’s possible to crack Windows’ BitLocker encryption with a cheap Raspberry Pi. The attack requires physical access to a device.

Windows BitLocker encryption is not foolproof. It has already been shown to negatively impact your laptop’s performance. Now it turns out that a hacker can crack the encryption using a Raspberry Pi Pico. The vulnerability takes advantage of the fact that the TPM chip that contains the key shares it unencrypted with the CPU when your computer is considered secure and not compromised. In principle, this is not a problem: a hacker has no access to the shared key.

Sniffing with hardware

A criminal can try to get the key sniffle when it is passed on. That’s not a given, but Pile shattering made it. He shows this in detail in a video on YouTube. Sniffing occurs via a port on the motherboard of the laptop being hacked. By holding a cheap Raspberry Pi that can read electrical signals against it, you can steal the key when the laptop boots up. It is then possible to remove the SSD from the laptop and read the data using the stolen key.

You don’t need much material for the attack: you can get started with a Raspberry Pi Pico and self-soldered pogo pins. The hack requires time and unrestricted access to a laptop. So you don’t have to worry about hackers gaining access to your BitLocker key over the Internet or even your local network.

Targeted physical attack

The attack only works if the TPM and CPU are not merged on the laptop. Stacksmashing initially worked with a Lenovo device, but some laptops from other manufacturers are also vulnerable. The method could be problematic in a scenario where professional gangs steal an encrypted laptop for the data on it.