Title

The Customer Experience Improvement Program for Office must be disabled. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

When users choose to participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP), 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 an 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

Verify the policy value for User Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Microsoft Office 2013 >> Privacy >> Trust Center "Enable Customer Experience Improvement Program" is set to "Disabled". Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\common Criteria: If the value 'QMEnable' is REG_DWORD = 0, this is not a finding.

Fix Text

Set the policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2013 -> Privacy -> Trust Center "Enable Customer Experience Improvement Program" to "Disabled".

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-228529r508020_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-228529

Group Title: SRG-APP-000141

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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