Recently, Microsoft made an official announcement stating that it will enhance BitLocker, a pivotal security feature within Windows 11. This upgrade will manifest as a hardware-accelerated iteration of BitLocker, set to debut in Windows 11 24H2 and subsequent releases.

While BitLocker's CPU consumption has traditionally hovered below 10%, the advent of NVMe technology has dramatically accelerated I/O operation speeds. Consequently, conventional software-based encryption methods are struggling to match the pace of high-speed data transfers, resulting in CPU bottlenecks. To tackle this issue, Microsoft has engineered a hardware-accelerated BitLocker solution. This innovative approach leverages the XTS-AES-256 algorithm to offload intensive encryption tasks from the CPU core to a dedicated AES encryption engine embedded within the SoC. By doing so, it liberates CPU resources for other operations.

According to Microsoft's official statistics, the hardware-accelerated BitLocker outperforms its software counterpart across all storage operations, encompassing both sequential and random read/write tasks. On average, it reduces CPU usage by 70%, with performance metrics nearly on par with devices that have BitLocker disabled. In CrystalDiskMark tests, the hardware-accelerated version attained read speeds of up to 3746.55MB/s and write speeds of up to 3530.82MB/s, both figures more than doubling those of the software version.

Furthermore, the hardware-accelerated BitLocker bolsters security by incorporating 'Hardware-Protected Key' technology. When paired with the TPM module, it encapsulates the encryption key directly within the SoC's proprietary hardware, eliminating the need for storage in the CPU or system memory. This effectively thwarts attacks such as memory snooping. Initially, this feature will be rolled out on Intel Core Ultra 300 series (Panther Lake) processor platforms that support vPro technology. Microsoft intends to gradually extend its availability to all Windows PCs compatible with hardware acceleration once the technology reaches maturity.