RSS feed synchronization with Common Feed List must be disallowed.

Overview

Finding ID	Version	Rule ID	IA Controls	Severity
V-17806	DTOO281 - Outlook	SV-33501r1_rule	ECSC-1	Medium

Description
The Common Feed list is a hierarchical set of RSS feeds to which clients such as Outlook 2010, the Feeds list in Internet Explorer, and the Feed Headlines Sidebar gadget in Windows Vista can subscribe. If Outlook subscribes to a very large feed list, performance and availability can be affected, especially if Outlook is configured to download full RSS message bodies or if the feed list is not AutoArchived regularly. By default, Outlook maintains its own list of feeds and does not automatically subscribe to RSS feeds that are added to the Common Feed List.

Description

The Common Feed list is a hierarchical set of RSS feeds to which clients such as Outlook 2010, the Feeds list in Internet Explorer, and the Feed Headlines Sidebar gadget in Windows Vista can subscribe. If Outlook subscribes to a very large feed list, performance and availability can be affected, especially if Outlook is configured to download full RSS message bodies or if the feed list is not AutoArchived regularly. By default, Outlook maintains its own list of feeds and does not automatically subscribe to RSS feeds that are added to the Common Feed List.

STIG	Date
Microsoft Outlook 2010	2014-01-07

Details

Check Text ( C-33984r1_chk )
The policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Outlook 2010 -> Account Settings -> RSS Feeds “Synchronize Outlook RSS Feeds with Common Feed List” must be set to “Disabled”. Procedure: Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key: HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\14.0\outlook\options\rss Criteria: If the value SyncToSysCFL is REG_DWORD = 0, this is not a finding.

Check Text ( C-33984r1_chk )

The policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Outlook 2010 -> Account Settings -> RSS Feeds “Synchronize Outlook RSS Feeds with Common Feed List” must be set to “Disabled”.

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

HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\14.0\outlook\options\rss

Criteria: If the value SyncToSysCFL is REG_DWORD = 0, this is not a finding.

Fix Text (F-29673r1_fix)
Set the policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Outlook 2010 -> Account Settings -> RSS Feeds “Synchronize Outlook RSS Feeds with Common Feed List” to “Disabled”.