Linus, what are you doing?
LINUS: Oh. Uh..
Yeah, I'm trying out this uh,
thumb drive that claims to let you unlock any
windows-based PC in just a couple minutes!
[INTRO MUSIC PLAYING]
Zotac's Geforce 10 series cards featuring NVIDIA's
Pascal Architecture as well as
other features like their IceStorm Cooling
and Spectra Lighting System.
Check them out at the link in the video description.
LINUS: How's my hair? Whatever.
Okay, so silliness aside, this little thing right
here is the Password Reset Key 2.
The follow-up to the original Password Reset Key
that was kick-started by John T Lovell
back in 2014 raising about
34,000 Great Britain pounds.
Now they sent me the original one for
consideration for one of my handy tech
Under $100 episodes
about 4 months ago, but I ended up rejecting it due it's strange behavior in Windows 10,
particularly around Windows Live Accounts Vs. Local Accounts.
However, it turns out they were already in the
process of working on a follow-up that's
the one they've sent me and that's the
one that will be checking out today.
So with the Password Reset Key 2, they've
dramatically improved the UI,
They've added Windows 10 support,
They've added windows live account detection though to
be clear password reset key cannot break
through the password of a windows live
account and will simply redirect you to
Microsoft's account recovery page and
they've added BitLocker encrypted volume
detection though again it just prompts
you to enter your password or backup key
if you want to access any of those files
they haven't broken bit lockers
encryption that would be pretty big news
so then what does it do well on the time
you've spent listening to me explain the
limitations you've pretty much witnessed
the basic functionality I stripped the
password off of a computer that was just
using a local windows account but
there's more so by inserting the
password reset key into any Windows PC
and changing the boot mode to legacy
instead of UEFI that's an important step
please note you will also have to
disable some security features like
secure boot for example and then
changing your boot device to the PRK
you'll get dropped into this menu which
allows you to do a bunch of things
really you can clone a local account
which allows you to then strip the
password off of that cloned account this
is useful if you're a tech trying to get
into a PC and you don't want the
customer to have to reset
their password after the fact you can
open up a registry editor you can make
changes to the PC using the command
prompt you can recover files from it
either directly through a file explorer
and then you can just copy to or move to
some other attached storage device or
you can actually recover deleted files
from it and finally and this one's kind
of scary if you didn't know how easy it
was to break into a Windows PC you can
take the local administrator account
which is on every Windows 10 computer
and you can unlock and activate it which
means as soon as you reboot pull out the
PRK go back into UEFI mode if applicable
you will be landed on the windows login
screen you'll be able to log into that
account with no password required from
there you'll be able to do anything you
want to the computer including deleting
the existing windows live account
keeping all of that person's files and
even setting up new accounts using it as
though it had never belonged to anyone
else so if you're a well-intentioned
technician out there you're probably
looking at this going well gee that
looks great that could make my life a
lot more useful thanks for that Linus
but if you're a general consumer who had
no idea that you could break into a
Windows computer in a couple of minutes
with a twenty-dollar doodad that you can
buy online I can see how this would be a
little scary and what I'm about to say
probably won't make you feel much better
this is not the only way to break into a
Windows computer it's actually quite
easy this just makes it accessible
enough that anyone can do it even with
no dinking around in the registry or the
command prompt so the next question
people are bound to ask is how do I
protect myself against this because even
if you did put a password on that built
an administrator account well I can
strip it off in seconds and the answer
is there are a few ways so full disk
encryption using BitLocker within
windows is one of those ways it can
detect the volume but it can't read any
of the files off of it and you can also
buy SSDs or hard drives that feature
self encryption so you have to enter a
password right when you turn on the
computer in the first place in order to
unlock the encryption on that drive if
your computer doesn't have a trusted
platform module or you're trying to keep
your files safe without going and buying
a new drive though there are other
options there too so Luke has a video
which you can check out over
here on programs that you can stall
within windows to create encrypted
containers for your files that even if
someone used a PRK rip that file off the
computer they would need the key in
order to open so thanks for watching
guys if you dislike this video go ahead
and hit that dislike button but if you
liked it hit the like button get
subscribed maybe even consider checking
out the password reset key that's the
product me feature today at the link to
amazon in the video description we will
get a kickback if you buy one using our
link also in the video description is
our merch store where you can buy cool
t-shirts just like this one as well as
our community forum which you can join
to discuss this video or really anything
else tech I think that pretty much wraps
it up don't forget to subscribe if you
haven't already and don't forget to
check out our other channels like
channel super fun super fun over there
by the time you watch this video we
could have this like super weird video
of me like playing a Japanese mobile
game it's like bizarre but you might
actually enjoy it just don't admit to
anyone you know that you enjoyed it see
you next time