Details

This policy setting controls whether the Office automatic updates are enabled or disabled for all Office products installed via Click-to-Run. This policy has no effect on Office products installed via Windows Installer. If this policy setting is enabled, Office periodically checks for updates. When updates are detected, Office downloads and applies them in the background. If policy setting is disabled, Office will not check for updates. Without receiving automatic updates, vulnerabilities found within the Office products will not be applied, leaving the vulnerabilities exposed.

Solution

Set the policy value for Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Office 2013 (Machine)->Updates->’Enable Automatic Updates’ to ‘Enabled’.

Set the policy value for Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Updates -> ‘Specify intranet Microsoft update service location’ to ‘Enabled’ and the ‘Set the intranet update service for detecting updates:’ and the ‘Set the intranet statistics server:’to point to an Intranet system.

Supportive Information

The following resource is also helpful.

• https://dl.dod.cyber.mil/wp-content/uploads/stigs/zip/U_MS_OfficeSystem_2013_V2R1_STIG.zip

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

References

• 800-53|SI-2c.
• CAT|II
• CCI|CCI-002605
• Rule-ID|SV-228562r508020_rule
• STIG-ID|DTOO401
• STIG-Legacy|SV-53190
• STIG-Legacy|V-40858
• Vuln-ID|V-228562

Source

• Tenable.com/audits