Title

A mix of policy and user locations for Office Products must be disallowed. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

When Microsoft Office files are opened from trusted locations, all the content in the files is enabled and active. Users are not notified about any potential risks that might be contained in the files, such as unsigned macros, ActiveX controls, or links to content on the Internet. By default, users can specify any location as a trusted location, and a computer can have a combination of user-created, OCT-created, and Group Policy–created trusted locations.

Check Content

The policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2010 -> Security Settings -> Trust Center “Allow mix of policy and user locations” 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\trusted locations Criteria: If the value Allow User Locations 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 -> Trust Center “Allow mix of policy and user locations” to “Disabled”.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-33470r1_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-17560

Group Title: DTOO196 - Mix of Policy and User Locations

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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