Title

Enable the "Disable Check for Solutions" in Office. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

Office Diagnostics collects relevant diagnostic information when Office applications crash and prompts users to transmit the data to Microsoft, directs them to a Web page that contains information about the crash and, if possible, advice about resolving the issue and preventing future crashes. Any data transmitted to Microsoft is anonymous and includes no personally identifiable information, in accordance with the Microsoft Office privacy statement. However, some organizations might have security policies that prevent information about their computers from being sent externally under any circumstances. By default, when a 2007 Office application crashes, Office Diagnostics prompts users and then connects to Microsoft servers to transmit information about the crash.

Check Content

The policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2007 system -> Office Diagnostics “Disable Check For Solutions” will be set to “Enabled”. Procedure: Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key: HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\Common\OffDiag Criteria: If the value DisableCheckForSolutions is REG_DWORD = 1, this is not a finding.

Fix Text

The policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2007 system -> Office Diagnostics “Disable Check For Solutions” will be set to “Enabled”. "Note: Group Policy Administrative Templates are available from the www.microsoft.com download site. The MS Office 2007 System (Office12.adm) is included in the AdminTemplates.exe file. This template provides the mechanisms to incorporate Microsoft Office 2007 System policies via the Microsoft Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc)." "Note: If the Microsoft Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc) is not used to incorporate the remediation to this vulnerability the Microsoft Registry Editor (regedit.exe) may be used to create the registry key and value required."

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-18802r1_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-17653

Group Title:

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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