WOL/Encrypted laptops

[olds]

All our laptops are required to have encryption installed. It is McAfee Endpoint.
Some of our laptops sit unused in locked closets for months on end. There is a specific business reason for them sitting that is not relevant to the discussion.

I'd like to use WOL to push updates to them. But once they wake, what happens with encryption? If I need someone there to type in the password that really defeats the whole purpose of WOL.

TIA

 

[Mushkins]

Depends on the encryption. I haven't used McAfee Endpoint but most full disk encryption is based on a pre-boot environment. Which means you probably dont have any network connectivity at all, or if you do it's definitely not domain authenticated and the OS hasn't even started up yet so you can't push updates to it.

Best solution for these sorts of things is to just make it routine for someone from IT to power them on, log in, and let them sit for updates/AV definitions/etc once a month. Then lock em back up in the morning. We have to do this for all of our dedicated disaster recovery hardware.

 

[imagoon]

Depends on the app. Bitlocker supports unlock servers for this use.