Details

This setting specifies whether users can open, view, edit, or save files saved in the specified format. Enabling the editing of the specified format in protected view, it mitigates zero-day security attacks (which are attacks that occur during between the time that a vulnerability becomes publicly known and a software update or service pack is available) by temporarily preventing users from opening specific types of files and to prevent a user from opening files that have been saved in earlier and pre-release (beta) Microsoft Office formats.

Solution

Set the policy value for User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Microsoft Word 2013 -> Word Options -> Security -> Trust Center -> File Block Settings ‘Word 2000 binary documents and templates’ to ‘Enabled: Allow editing and open in Protected View’.

Supportive Information

The following resource is also helpful.

• https://iasecontent.disa.mil/stigs/zip/U_MS_Word_2013_V1R6_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(1)
• CAT|II
• CCI|CCI-001662
• Rule-ID|SV-53591r1_rule
• STIG-ID|DTOO334
• Vuln-ID|V-26654

Source

• Tenable.com/audits