Office client polling of SharePoint servers published links must be disabled.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-228516	DTOO208	SV-228516r508020_rule		Medium

Description
Users of Office applications can see and use links to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server sites from those applications. Administrators configure published links to Office applications during initial deployment, and can add or change links as part of regular operations. These links appear on the My SharePoint Sites tab of the Open, Save, and Save As dialog boxes when opening and saving documents from these applications. Links can be targeted so that they only appear to users who are members of particular audiences. If a malicious person gains access to the list of published links, they could modify the links to point to unapproved sites, which could make sensitive data vulnerable to exposure.

Description

Users of Office applications can see and use links to Microsoft Office SharePoint Server sites from those applications. Administrators configure published links to Office applications during initial deployment, and can add or change links as part of regular operations. These links appear on the My SharePoint Sites tab of the Open, Save, and Save As dialog boxes when opening and saving documents from these applications. Links can be targeted so that they only appear to users who are members of particular audiences. If a malicious person gains access to the list of published links, they could modify the links to point to unapproved sites, which could make sensitive data vulnerable to exposure.

STIG	Date
Microsoft Office System 2013 Security Technical Implementation Guide	2020-09-25

Details

Check Text ( C-30749r498826_chk )
Verify the policy value for User Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Microsoft Office 2013 >> Server Settings "Disable the Office client from polling the SharePoint Server for published links" is set to "Enabled". Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\common\portal If the value 'LinkPublishingDisabled' is REG_DWORD = 1, this is not a finding.

Check Text ( C-30749r498826_chk )

Verify the policy value for User Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Microsoft Office 2013 >> Server Settings "Disable the Office client from polling the SharePoint Server for published links" is set to "Enabled".

Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\common\portal

If the value 'LinkPublishingDisabled' is REG_DWORD = 1, this is not a finding.

Fix Text (F-30734r498827_fix)
Set the policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2013 -> Server Settings "Disable the Office client from polling the SharePoint Server for published links" to "Enabled".