Title

Disable the "Enable Customer Experience Improvement Program" for Office. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

When users choose to participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP), 2007 Office applications automatically send information to Microsoft about how the applications are used. This information is combined with other CEIP data to help Microsoft solve problems and to improve the products and features customers use most often. This feature does not collect users' names, addresses, or any other identifying information except the IP address that is used to send the data. By default, users have the opportunity to opt into participation in the CEIP the first time they run an Office application. If your organization has policies that govern the use of external resources such as the CEIP, allowing users to opt in to the program might cause them to violate these policies.

Check Content

The policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2007 system -> Privacy -> Trust Center “Enable Customer Experience Improvement Program” will be set to “Disabled”. Procedure: Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key: HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Common Criteria: If the value QMEnable is REG_DWORD =0, this is not a finding.

Fix Text

The policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2007 system -> Privacy -> Trust Center “Enable Customer Experience Improvement Program” will be set to “Disabled”. "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-18747r1_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-17612

Group Title:

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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