Microsoft Office System 2013 STIG Version Comparison

There are 45 differences between versions v1 r8 (April 26, 2019) (the "left" version) and v2 r1 (Oct. 23, 2020) (the "right" version).

Check DTOO179 was changed between these two versions. Green, underlined text was added, red, struck-out text was removed.

The regular view of the left check and right check may be easier to read.

Title

Documents must be configured to not open as Read Write when browsing.

Check Content

Verify the policy value for User Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Microsoft Office 2013 >> Tools | Options | General | Web Options... >> Files "Open Office documents as read/write while browsing" is set to "Disabled". Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Office\15.0\common\internet If the value “OpenDocumentsReadWriteWhileBrowsing” 'OpenDocumentsReadWriteWhileBrowsing' for every user profile hive is REG_DWORD = 0, this is not a finding.

Discussion

By default, when an Office 2013 document on a web server is opened using Internet Explorer, the appropriate application opens the file in read-only mode. However, if the default configuration is changed, the document is opened as read/write. Users could potentially make changes to documents and resave them in situations where the web server security is not configured to prevent such changes.

Fix

Set the policy value for User Configuration >> Administrative Templates >> Microsoft Office 2013 >> Tools | Options | General | Web Options... >> Files "Open Office documents as read/write while browsing" to "Disabled".