Details

Microsoft ActiveX controls allow unmanaged, unprotected code to run on the user computers. ActiveX controls do not run within a protected container in the browser like the other types of HTML or Microsoft Silverlight-based controls. Disabling or not configuring this setting does not block prompts for ActiveX control installations and these prompts display to users. This could allow malicious code to become active on user computers or the network.

Solution

Set the policy value for Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2013 (Machine) -> Security Settings -> IE Security ‘Restrict ActiveX Install’ to ‘Enabled’ and ‘groove.exe’ is checked.

Supportive Information

The following resource is also helpful.

• https://iasecontent.disa.mil/stigs/zip/U_MS_Groove_2013_V1R3_STIG.zip

This security hardening control applies to the following category of controls within NIST 800-53: System and Communications Protection.This control applies to the following type of system Windows.

References

• 800-53|SC-18(4)
• CAT|II
• CCI|CCI-002460
• CSCv6|3.1
• Rule-ID|SV-52833r1_rule
• STIG-ID|DTOO211
• Vuln-ID|V-40775

Source

• Tenable.com/audits