BitLocker Drive Encryption is a data protection feature available in Windows Vista Enterprise and Ultimate for client computers and in Windows Server 2008. BitLocker is Microsoft’s response to a frequent customer request: address these very real threats of data theft or disclosure from lost, stolen or inappropriately decommissioned PC hardware with a tightly integrated solution in the Windows Operating System.

Solid protection for home or office PCs.
BitLocker prevents a thief who boots another operating system or runs a software hacking tool from breaking Windows Vista file and system protections or performing offline viewing of the files stored on the protected drive.

The feature ideally uses a Trusted Platform Module (TPM 1.2) to protect user data and to ensure that a PC running Windows Vista has not been tampered with while the system was offline. BitLocker provides both mobile and office enterprise information workers with enhanced data protection should their systems be lost or stolen and secure data deletion when it comes time to decommission those assets.

BitLocker enhances data protection by bringing together two major sub-functions: drive encryption and the integrity checking of early boot components.

Drive encryption protects data by preventing unauthorized users from breaking Windows file and system protection on lost, stolen or inappropriately decommissioned computers. This protection is achieved by encrypting the entire Windows volume; with BitLocker all user and system files are encrypted including the swap and hibernation files.

Integrity checking the early boot components helps to ensure that data decryption is performed only if those components appear unmolested and that the encrypted drive is located in the original computer.

BitLocker is tightly integrated into Windows Vista and provides a seamless, secure, and easily manageable data protection solution for the enterprise.

Windows BitLocker is for both business and personal users who need to help protect sensitive data on their PC.

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Windows BitLocker uses hardware-enabled full-volume data encryption technology that gives you greater peace of mind knowing that your corporate intellectual property is safer and will remain your strategic asset. Also, because the entire Windows volume is encrypted, Windows BitLocker reduces the cost associated with decommissioning old PCs.
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System Requirements
Supported Operating Systems: Longhorn (Windows Code Name)

Instructions

Click the Download link on this page to start the download, or choose a different language from the drop-down list and click Go.

Do one of the following:

To start the installation immediately, click Open or Run this program from its current location.

To copy the download to your computer for installation at a later time, click Save or Save this program to disk.

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Windows Vista includes many security features and improvements to protect client computers from the latest generation of threats, including worms, viruses, and other malicious software (collectively known as malware).

User Account Control allows users to be productive and change common settings while running as a standard user, without requiring administrative privileges. This prevents users from making potentially dangerous changes to their computers, without limiting their ability to run applications

from phishing and spoofing attacks. New features include protected mode Internet Explorer, which helps protect user data and configuration settings from being deleted or changed by malicious Web sites or malware.

Windows Defender detects many types of potentially suspicious software and can prompt the user before allowing applications to make potentially malicious changes.

The new outbound filtering in the firewall provides administrative control over peer-to-peer sharing applications and other similar applications that businesses want to restrict.

Windows Service Hardening limits the damage attackers can do in the unlikely event that they are able to successfully compromise a service. As a result, the risk of attackers making permanent changes to the Windows Vista client or attacking other computers on the network is reduced.

Administrators can use Network Access Protection to prevent clients that do not meet the internal system health policy from connecting to the internal network and potentially spreading malware to other machines.

Enterprise users with computers with appropriate enabling hardware benefit from protection of data on lost or stolen computers with BitLocker? Drive Encryption. A computer with BitLocker enabled will have its entire Windows volume encrypted?protecting data, files, e-mail, and intellectual property from unauthorized users trying to break into a computer.

Finally, to ensure that IT departments have a wide variety of authentication mechanisms to choose from, Windows Vista includes new authentication architecture that is easier for third-party developers to extend. Ultimately, this will lead to a wider choice of smart cards, fingerprint scanners, and other forms of strong authentication. Together, these security improvements will make users more confident in using their PCs.

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Today, many Windows users run with administrative privileges in both the enterprise and the home. Running as an administrator results in a desktop that is hard to manage and has the potential for high support costs. Deploying desktops with standard user permissions can result in cost savings because a non-administrative user no longer has the ability to accidentally improperly configure the network or install an application that might affect system stability. Running without administrative privileges is challenging today since many applications fail to run and end users get frustrated by the inability to perform common tasks such as adding printers.

In Windows Vista, the User Account Control (UAC) initiative introduces fundamental operating system changes to enhance the experience for the non-administrative user. For example, in the enterprise context, a mobile laptop user will be able to set a WEP key to attach to a secure wireless network, install a printer, download and install application updates, setup and configure a Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection, and perform many other standard tasks, all while running as a non-administrator.

User Account Control leverages the Windows security user model to distinguish between administrator and standard users. The standard user account is an account that has no computer administrator privilege. When a user whose account is a member of the local Administrator account logs on to a Windows Vista computer, they are logged on as a standard user by default. When the user wants to perform a task that requires administrative privileges, such as installing an application, Windows Vista explicitly prompts the user for permission or for credentials, depending on the security policy that is chosen. This process helps ensure that malware cannot silently install on a user?s computer. Unlike Windows XP, however, standard users are not automatically blocked from performing tasks that require administrative privileges. Windows Vista explicitly prompts a standard user to enter valid credentials for a local administrator account before it will allow the standard user to perform the task.

For those times when an administrator needs to use their administrator privileges, they don’t have to use Run As because Windows Vista can automatically prompt them for the required credentials, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Windows Vista automatically prompts you for administrator credentials when an application requests them.

Benefits

User Account Control allows organizations to move to a better-managed desktop with potentially lower support costs.

User Account Control reduces:

The need for organizations to re-image computers due to user configuration changes.

The risk of system-level impact by malware.

To understand the benefits of User Account Control, consider the following scenario of Don Hall, a remote user that is traveling for business. Don has a laptop with Windows Vista installed and runs as a standard user. During some free time in his hotel, Don browses to the Internet and attempts to download a game. Don is not aware, however, that the game is a Trojan horse, and the game attempts to install malware that starts automatically when the computer starts. However, because the malware requires administrative privileges to install and Don is running with a standard user account, Don?s computer will not be infected with the malware. Later, Don needs to install a new printer driver in order to print a document to the hotel printer. Because the driver is signed by a company that the IT department trusts, Don will be able to install the driver without administrator privileges. In this way, User Account Control protects users while still enabling them to be productive.

Why It Matters

With Microsoft Windows XP and earlier versions of the Windows operating system, IT professionals had two choices:

Give users administrative privileges and deal with support calls resulting from improper software installations or configuration changes.

Give users restricted privileges and deal with support calls when applications don’t work properly.

With Windows Vista, you do not have to make compromises. Users can be productive and protected from system-wide malware installs while still being able to run most applications. Ultimately, this means fewer support calls and less engineering time spent configuring applications to run under restrictive privileges

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Benefits

The smart card improvements in Windows Vista make it easier for organizations to deploy and support this built-in authentication method. Windows Vista directly benefits developers who offer customized authentication mechanisms such as biometrics and tokens by making it easier to implement the authentication mechanism. This benefits IT departments indirectly by granting them more choices from third-party vendors.

Why It Matters

For many organizations, single-factor authentication is not sufficient. IT organizations that place a high value on security need multi-factor authentication. By making it easier for developers to create custom authentication methods, IT departments will have more choices for biometric, smart cards, and other types of strong authentication.

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Benefits

Malware often degrades system performance, which often leads users to prematurely conclude that their computers are too slow or unreliable and need to be re-imaged. Unfortunately, this process increases computer maintenance costs overall. Malware’s greatest threat, however, is to security. For example, malware may compromise confidential data or introduce additional security vulnerabilities to a computer. Therefore, the added protection and malware cleaning available in Windows Vista improves the performance and security of the computers on your network, reducing support calls.

Why It Matters

IT departments waste many of their resources solving problems caused by malware: slow computer performance, poor reliability, and security compromises. Windows Defender removes malicious software and gives users better control over the software on their computers.

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Network Access Protection can enforce health requirements for mobile computers, remote computers, and computers directly connected to your private network. Often, users who travel with their computers are unable to connect to your private network for weeks at a time. When they do connect, their connections might be so brief that their computers do not have time to download the latest updates, security configuration settings, and virus signatures. Therefore, mobile computers are often in a less-healthy state than other computers. Network Access Protection improves the security of these mobile computers by ensuring that the latest updates are installed before users connect to your private network.

Why It Matters

Viruses and worms are often introduced to a private network by an infected mobile or remote computer. Network Access Protection in Windows Vista, when used with a Network Access Protection infrastructure, allows you to configure requirements for all client computers. If a client computer does not meet the health requirements, you can:

Prevent the computer from connecting to your private network and potentially spreading a virus or worm.

Provide instructions to users on how to update their computers, or update their computers automatically if the appropriate remediation technologies are in place.

Grant restricted access to a limited number of servers on your network to allow users to download updates.

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