Title

Exchange sends fatal errors to Microsoft. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Log files help establish a history of activities, and can be useful in detecting attack attempts or determining tuning adjustments to improve availability. This setting enables an automated log entry to be sent to Microsoft giving general details about the nature and location of the error. Microsoft, in turn, uses this information to improve the robustness of their product. While this type of debugging information would not ordinarily contain sensitive information, it may alert eavesdroppers to the existence of problems in your Exchange organization. At the very least, it could alert them to (possibly) advantageous timing to mount an attack. At worst, it may provide them with information as to which aspects of Exchange are causing problems and might be vulnerable (or at least sensitive) to attack. All system errors in Exchange will result in outbound traffic that may be identified by an eavesdropper. For this reason, the “Report errors to Microsoft” feature must be disabled at all times.

Check Content

Access the “send error message to Microsoft” configuration. Procedure: Exchange System Manager >> Administrative Groups >> [administrative group] >> Servers >> [server] >> Properties >> General tab The “Automatically send fatal service error to Microsoft” checkbox should be clear. Criteria: If “Automatically send fatal service error to Microsoft” checkbox is clear, this is not a finding.

Fix Text

Configure the "send error message to Microsoft" option. Procedure: Exchange System Manager >> Administrative Groups >> [administrative group] >> Servers >> [server] >> Properties >> General tab Clear the “Automatically send fatal service error to Microsoft” checkbox.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-20611r1_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-18711

Group Title:

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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