Windows BitLocker Physical Attack Bypass Exposes Encrypted Devices

Microsoft has published CVE-2026-50661, a Windows BitLocker security feature bypass caused by CWE-693: Protection Mechanism Failure. The flaw allows an unauthorized attacker with physical access to bypass BitLocker protections on affected Windows systems, including multiple supported builds of Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server 2016, 2019, 2022, and 2025, before Microsoft’s listed fixed versions. Microsoft scored the issue CVSS 6.1 (Medium) and released vendor advisory and patch information through MSRC.

If exploited, the weakness could let an attacker recover the Volume Master Key, decrypt the full physical volume, and access sensitive data such as user files, system configuration, and active session tokens. The same access could enable offline tampering, including modifying binaries, changing registry hives, or planting persistent malware such as bootkits or malicious drivers before the device is returned to service. Reported mitigations include applying Microsoft’s updates, requiring a pre-boot PIN for BitLocker, and disabling the Windows Recovery Environment with:

reagentc /disable