Bypassing Bitlocker using a cheap logic analyzer on a Lenovo laptop
<i>>The use of a discrete (physical) TPM actually decreases the security of the system, using a fTPM would solve the problem.</i><p>Errr... no. Using no TPM of any kind decreases your security.<p>The discrete TPM's threat model was never designed to cover you from attackers using oscilloscope to probe your laptop's SPI bus during the boot process for unencrypted data.<p>Unencrypted communications over any channel, SW or HW are bad and dTPM never claimed it would protect you from that, but it's still better than no-TPM, and have your keys in system memory or on the disk where it could be accessed through software vulnerabilities.<p>Of course fTPM, is the next step up in security, even though that's also not impenetrable to attackers with the right side channel analysis equipment and expertise, but security threat model is anyway a matter of time and budget of your attackers, nothing can ever be 100% invulnerable to  everything.