GLBA PC Encryption

windows encryption pc bitlocker DSU glba

Pre-Encryption Checklist

Before encrypting your device, make sure the following items apply:

You are encrypting a UWYO owned laptop and not your personal device. (We cannot provide directions for encrypting personal devices).
Your device is enrolled in UWYO's Microsoft InTune Instance.*

* To see the following options for encryption on your Windows PC, your computer must be joined to the UWYO domain and enrolled in InTune. If your comptuer is not enrolled in InTune, you will have issues with encryption or may not be able to decrypt your machine. Contact UWYO IT Helpdesk to assist in getting your computer enrolled into InTune.
(You can check whether your computer has been enrolled by going to your start menu and typing in "Company Portal". All InTune enrolled devices will have Company Portal for the University of Wyoming Installed and available.)

PC Encryption

Encryption will provide a higher level of security for the data that is in your care.

**CAUTION: ALWAYS BACK UP YOUR DATA BEFORE ENCRYPTING**
Please be aware that encryption will add another level of sophistication to recovering your data - in the event your data becomes corrupted or if you lose the ability to decrypt your drive, the data would no longer be recoverable without a backup. The best practice method for recovery in this case is to pull the information from a reliable and secure backup. As you are responsible for backing up and securing your data, we strongly promote and encourage you to diligently back up your data in a timely manner using options like One-Drive that is in a secure location and provides redundancy and fault tolerance, should a hardware failure occur. You could also consider a local backup where a secondary internal drive could be installed internally to your computer and used to backup data. Please contact IT to discuss the options and let us know if you need assistance or have any questions or concerns.

NOTE: If you are not prompted to encrypt your computer, please either log out and log back in OR reboot your computer(s) so that the proper policies are applied. This can take some time. If after 24 hours you are still not seeing an encryption prompt, please reply to your ticket and UWIT will reach out to help.

If you deferred encryption and wish to get the prompt back, log out/in or reboot and the prompt should reappear.

Step 1

You may receive a notification saying encryption is needed. If you received this notification, click it to proceed to the following steps.

If you did not receive this notification at all, then click the Windows key, type Manage Bitlocker, and click enter. You will receive a screen.

Windows notification stating that device encryption is needed for work or school, with the taskbar showing 32°F, partly cloudy weather, and the time and date.