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-18207r2_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	2015-10-02

Details

Check Text ( C-17890r3_chk )
Validate the policy value for Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Microsoft Office 2007 system (Machine) >> Security Settings >> IE Security “Navigate URL” is set to “Enabled” and "excel.exe" check box 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-17890r3_chk )

Validate the policy value for Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Microsoft Office 2007 system (Machine) >> Security Settings >> IE Security “Navigate URL” is set to “Enabled” and "excel.exe" check box 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-17053r3_fix)
Set the policy value for Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Microsoft Office 2007 system (Machine) >> Security Settings >> IE Security “Navigate URL” to “Enabled” and select the "excel.exe" check box.