0

Our school has a remote file server (Windows 2022 virtual server on a colo) that provides network shared drives. We have both Windows and MacOS clients accessing it through SMB.

Recently our IT Sub-committee recommended me enable Bitlocker on these shared volumes.

First question regarding SMB encryption: Microsoft has the following on SMB encryption. My understanding is this is for the encryption on the connection between client machine and server. Correct? https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/file-server/smb-security

Second question regarding Bitlocker: I don't quite seem to be able to find related topic on Bitlocker on shared network drive. Can Bitlocker be applied to network shared volumes?

Thanks much in advance!

I would like to enhance the security on our file sharing plus the data on the file server.

Improve this question

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
1

BitLocker can be enabled on a shared network volume. That needs to be enabled on the Windows Server 2022 host where the volume is shared. This only affects encryption at rest, and has no affect or impact on the clients accessing the shared network volume. If the hosting provider does not support virtual TPM this could be a non-starter though.

SMB Encryption protects data in transit, and the share can be configured to require this.

Improve this answer
2
  • Thank you so much, Greg! For the SMB encryption, does it need SSL cert set up? I don't seem to see that's a requirement on Microsoft's article mentioned above.
    – RabbitSF
    Dec 1, 2022 at 18:42
  • 1
    @RabbitSF: SMB encryption doesn't use certificates.
    – Greg Askew
    Dec 1, 2022 at 18:46

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .