Hacking a stolen laptop: bypassing Windows security (BitLocker etc.) using PCI connector. 💻🔬😈🐉🎉

Security researcher Pierre-Nicolas Allard-Coutu presented in his talk ways to attack a stolen Windows laptop, even when modern security features like BitLocker, TPM, and Kernel DMA Protection are enabled.

Using a PCI Express connector, some tooling, and an understanding of the boot process, the author demonstrates how each feature can be disabled or bypassed to gain SYSTEM-level access to the operating system.

If you use TPM-only BitLocker (and in 99% of cases, you do), it’s literally not a problem for an attacker: BitLocker auto-decrypts with TPM-only setups, so the attacker just waits for Windows to boot - then injects code into memory before the OS fully loads. Smart, fast and elegant :)

Practical and very useful results of extensive security research, development, and creative thinking. Enjoy the video, and maybe enable a BitLocker PIN!

More details:

Stolen Laptops A brief overview of modern physical access attacks [Youtube]: https://lnkd.in/dtqQdQpq

DMAReaper [Github]: https://github.com/PN-Tester/DMAReaper

FirstStrike [Github]: https://github.com/PN-Tester/FirstStrike