W10M - device encryption - SD card

[AndyCalling]

Bitlocker OTG would be the way Windows does this, but there are two problems. Firstly, this is only available on Win Pro or Enterprise for initiating Bitlocker on a drive. The internal drive is covered under the exception for small touch devices (as with tablets) but only applies to the internal boot drive. The way round this is to encrypt the card on your Win 10 Pro desktop or laptop PC, then it should work in all other versions of Windows since Bitlocker became a thing. Even version that do not have the native Bitlocker enabled such as Win 10 Home.

Give it a try. It works for my tablet, it may work for phones. Certainly MS has documented that it works on all SKUs of Windows (though they may not have been thinking about mobile, as is usual for Microsoft...).

This brings us to the second problem. The encryption on your phone's internal drive is hardware encryption (which is why it can 'encrypt' or 'decrypt' instantly, because it isn't really decrypting it is just unlocking the drive). The encryption used on an SD card via Bitlocker is software encryption. This will need to leverage your phone's processor to work the magic every time you use the SD card. Whilst this may be acceptable for storage of secure files, you will not want to be doing this to a card you intend to run apps from on a phone.

 

[EndOfRope]

Hi Andy,
if you think it may work for phones, how would you transfer the encrytion key to the phone? Would be nice if it could work for WM10.

 

[AndyCalling]

You would simply type in the Bitlocker password. What happens when you attach a BitLocker 2 GO device to any PC? A prompt to enter the password. If that doesn't appear, then MS must not have been considering Mobile when they stated that this works with all SKUs. My L930 has no SD slot so I cannot test. You'll have to try it yourself. All I can say is that this works on all W10 devices I have that have SD slots or USB ports. Just need to enable BitLocker on the storage device via a full W10 pro PC first.

 

[sidtek50]

Sorry to be "that guy" but I've just found out that Windows 10 mobile doesn't have the ability to encrypt the SD card and as a result of that, I'm returning my Lumia 640.

Yes, it's that serious. I loved my 640. The camera quality wasn't perfect and the build quality was a bit off (squeak in top right. Case didn't sit well) but the lack of sd encryption pushed me over the edge.

I store lots of sensitive files on my sd card such as my resume, my work emails/some attachments and photographs of friends/family. With a Windows Phone, if someone manages to get hold of your phone they could see all your data in plain text. This is 2016. What's going on Microsoft???

Your biggest rivals are encrypting (or at least give the option to encrypt an sd card) but Microsoft aren't? There doesn't seem to be any logic behind this whatsoever. I don't like Android , in fact, I hate it, but I have been forced to buy one and ditch my 640 because the android let's me encrypt my sd card.

We really need to push MS to build this feature in. It's no wonder why MS are struggling in this market when features which have been around on other phones for years aren't available on the latest W10 mobile.

Sorry for the rant but I seriously loved my Lumia but no encryption means less privacy and security and I cannot afford to take the gamble. All it takes is one unscrupulous person to dump your data online all because you didn't have the option to protect your sd card.

 

[evdel]

Wel at least in the last insider SDCard Encryption is available.