Block navigation to URL embedded in Office products to protect against attack by malformed URL.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-17183	DTOO123 - Excel	SV-18207r1_rule	ECSC-1	Medium

Description
To protect users from attacks, Internet Explorer usually does not attempt to load malformed URLs. This functionality can be controlled separately for instances of Internet Explorer spawned by 2007 Office applications (for example, if a user clicks a link in an Office document or selects a menu option that loads a Web page). If Internet Explorer attempts to load a malformed URL, a security risk could occur in some cases.

Description

To protect users from attacks, Internet Explorer usually does not attempt to load malformed URLs. This functionality can be controlled separately for instances of Internet Explorer spawned by 2007 Office applications (for example, if a user clicks a link in an Office document or selects a menu option that loads a Web page). If Internet Explorer attempts to load a malformed URL, a security risk could occur in some cases.

STIG	Date
Microsoft Excel 2007	2014-12-22

Details

Check Text ( C-17890r1_chk )
If Office 2007 PRE SP2: The policy value for Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2007 system (Machine) -> Security Settings -> IE Security “Navigate URL” will be set to “Enabled” and ‘excel.exe’ is checked. Procedure: Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key: HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_VALIDATE_NAVIGATE_URL Criteria: If the value excel.exe is REG_DWORD = 1, this is not a finding. If Office 2007 SP2: The policy value for Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2007 system (Machine) -> Security Settings -> IE Security “Navigate URL” will be set to “Enabled” and ‘excel.exe’ is checked. Procedure: Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key: HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_VALIDATE_NAVIGATE_URL Criteria: If the value excel.exe is REG_DWORD = 1, this is not a finding.

Check Text ( C-17890r1_chk )

If Office 2007 PRE SP2: The policy value for Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2007 system (Machine) -> Security Settings -> IE Security “Navigate URL” will be set to “Enabled” and ‘excel.exe’ is checked.

Procedure: Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key:

HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_VALIDATE_NAVIGATE_URL

Criteria: If the value excel.exe is REG_DWORD = 1, this is not a finding.

If Office 2007 SP2: The policy value for Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2007 system (Machine) -> Security Settings -> IE Security “Navigate URL” will be set to “Enabled” and ‘excel.exe’ is checked.

Procedure: Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key:

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_VALIDATE_NAVIGATE_URL

Criteria: If the value excel.exe is REG_DWORD = 1, this is not a finding.

Fix Text (F-17053r1_fix)
The policy value for Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2007 system (Machine) -> Security Settings -> IE Security “Navigate URL” will be set to “Enabled” and ‘excel.exe’ is checked. Note: In Office SP2 adm use, filtering in GPEDIT.MSC should have deselected any checks in "Only show configured policy settings" box, and "Only show policy settings that can be fully managed" box, in order to view the hive within the GP Console for policy use.

Fix Text (F-17053r1_fix)

The policy value for Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2007 system (Machine) -> Security Settings -> IE Security “Navigate URL” will be set to “Enabled” and ‘excel.exe’ is checked.

Note: In Office SP2 adm use, filtering in GPEDIT.MSC should have deselected any checks in "Only show configured policy settings" box, and "Only show policy settings that can be fully managed" box, in order to view the hive within the GP Console for policy use.