Title

Suggested Sites functionality must be disallowed. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

This policy setting controls the Suggested Sites feature, which recommends sites based on the user's browsing activity. Suggested Sites reports a user's browsing history to Microsoft to store and monitor user page activity to suggest sites the user might want to visit. If you enable this policy setting, the user will not be prompted to enable the Suggested Sites and the user's browsing activities will be sent and stored online to produce suggestions. If you disable this policy setting, the entry points and functionality associated with this feature will be disabled.

Check Content

The policy value for Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Windows Components >> Internet Explorer >> "Turn on Suggested Sites" must be "Disabled". Procedure: Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key: HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Suggested Sites Criteria: If the value "Enabled is REG_DWORD = 0", this is not a finding.

Fix Text

Set the policy value for Computer Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Windows Components >> Internet Explorer >> "Turn on Suggested Sites" to "Disabled".

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-45321r2_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-30776

Group Title: DTBI765 - Suggested Sites Functionality

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.