Title

Passwords for secured documents must be enforced. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

If 2010 Office users add passwords to documents, other users can be prevented from opening the documents. This capability can provide an extra level of protection to documents already protected by access control lists, or provide a means of securing documents not protected by file-level security. By default, users can add passwords to Excel 2010 workbooks, PowerPoint 2010 presentations, and Word 2010 documents from the Save or Save As dialog box by clicking Tools, clicking General Options, and entering appropriate passwords to open or modify the documents. If this configuration is changed, users will not be able to enter passwords in the General Options dialog box, which means they will not be able to password protect documents.

Check Content

The policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2010-> Security Settings “Disable password to open UI” must be set to “Disabled”. Procedure: Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key: HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\14.0\common\security Criteria: If the value DisablePasswordUI is REG_DWORD = 0, this is not a finding.

Fix Text

Set the policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2010-> Security Settings “Disable password to open UI” to “Disabled”.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-33456r1_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-17665

Group Title: DTOO195 - Disable Password to Open UI

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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