Microsoft Excel 2013 STIG
Rules, Groups, and Values defined within the XCCDF Benchmark
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DTOO111 - Enable IE Bind to Object
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DTOO104 - Disable user name and password
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Disabling of user name and password syntax from being used in URLs must be enforced.
The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) standard allows user authentication to be included in URL strings in the form http://username:password@example.com. A malicious user might use this URL syntax to ...Rule Medium Severity -
Internet Explorer Bind to Object functionality must be enabled.
Internet Explorer performs a number of safety checks before initializing an ActiveX control. It will not initialize a control if the kill bit for the control is set in the registry, or if the secur...Rule Medium Severity -
The Saved from URL mark must be selected to enforce Internet zone processing.
Typically, when Internet Explorer loads a web page from a Universal Naming Convention (UNC) share that contains a Mark of the Web (MOTW) comment, indicating the page was saved from a site on the In...Rule Medium Severity -
Navigation to URLs embedded in Office products must be blocked.
To protect users from attacks, Internet Explorer usually does not attempt to load malformed URLs. This functionality can be controlled separately for instances of Internet Explorer spawned by Offic...Rule Medium Severity -
Links that invoke instances of Internet Explorer from within an Office product must be blocked.
The "Pop-up Blocker" feature in Internet Explorer can be used to block most unwanted pop-up and pop-under windows from appearing. This functionality can be controlled separately for instances of In...Rule Medium Severity -
Trust Bar Notifications for unsigned application add-ins must be blocked.
If an application is configured to require all add-ins to be signed by a trusted publisher, any unsigned add-ins the application loads will be disabled and the application will display the Trust Ba...Rule Medium Severity -
All automatic loading from trusted locations must be disabled.
Trusted locations specified in the Trust Center are used to define file locations assumed to be safe. Content, code, and add-ins are allowed to load from trusted locations with a minimal amount of ...Rule Medium Severity -
The scanning of encrypted macros in open XML documents must be enforced.
When an Office Open XML document (Word, Excel, and PowerPoint) is rights-managed, or password-protected, any macros embedded in the document are encrypted along with the rest of the contents. By d...Rule Medium Severity -
Disallowance of trusted locations on the network must be enforced.
Files located in trusted locations and specified in the Trust Center are typically assumed to be safe. Content, code, and add-ins are allowed to load from trusted locations with minimal security an...Rule Medium Severity -
The Save commands default file format must be configured.
When users create new Excel files, Excel 2013 saves them in the new *.xlsx format. Ensure this setting is enabled to specify all new files are created in Excel 2013. If a new file is created in an ...Rule Medium Severity -
Trust access for VBA must be disallowed.
VSTO projects require access to the Visual Basic for Applications project system in Excel, PowerPoint, and Word, even though the projects do not use Visual Basic for Applications. Design-time suppo...Rule Medium Severity -
Warning Bar settings for VBA macros must be configured.
When users open files containing VBA macros, applications open the files with the macros disabled and displays the Trust Bar with a warning that macros are present and have been disabled. Users may...Rule Medium Severity -
Automatic republish to web pages must be disallowed.
If users choose to publish Excel data to a static web page and enable the AutoRepublish feature, Excel saves a copy of the data to the web page every time the user saves the workbook. If the page i...Rule Medium Severity -
The AutoRepublish warning alert must be provided.
AutoRepublish is a feature in Excel allowing workbooks to be automatically republished to the World Wide Web each time the workbook is saved. A number of changes might need to be made to allow the ...Rule Medium Severity -
Macro storage must be in personal macro workbooks.
The Record Macro dialog box includes a drop-down menu allowing users to choose whether to store the new macro in the current workbook, a new workbook, or their personal macro workbook (Personal.xls...Rule Medium Severity -
ActiveX Installs must be configured for proper restriction.
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 Mi...Rule Medium Severity -
Configuration for file validation must be enforced.
Office File Validation helps detect and prevent a kind of exploit known as a file format attack or file fuzzing attack. File format attacks exploit the integrity of a file. They occur when someone ...Rule Medium Severity -
Open/Save actions for dBase III / IV files must be blocked.
This setting specifies whether users can open, view, edit, or save files saved in the specified format. Enabling block of the specified format mitigates zero-day security attacks (which are attacks...Rule Medium Severity -
Open/Save actions for Excel 3 worksheets must be blocked.
This setting specifies whether users can open, view, edit, or save files saved in the specified format. Enabling block of the specified format mitigates zero-day security attacks (which are attacks...Rule Medium Severity -
Actions for Excel 95 workbooks must be configured to edit in Protected View.
This setting specifies whether users can open, view, edit, or save files saved in the specified format. Enabling block of the specified format mitigates zero-day security attacks (which are attacks...Rule Medium Severity -
Actions for Excel 95-97 workbooks and templates must be configured to edit in Protected View.
This setting specifies whether users can open, view, edit, or save files saved in the specified format. Enabling block of the specified format mitigates zero-day security attacks (which are attacks...Rule Medium Severity -
Excel attachments opened from Outlook must be in Protected View.
This policy setting allows for determining whether Excel files in Outlook attachments open in Protected View. If enabling this policy setting, Outlook attachments do not open in Protected View. If ...Rule Medium Severity -
WEBSERVICE functions must be disabled.
The WEBSERVICE function option, when used in an Excel spreadsheet, returns data from a web service on the Internet or Intranet. If allowed to be used, security is significantly reduced by allowing ...Rule Medium Severity -
Macros must be blocked from running in Office 2013 files from the Internet.
This policy setting allows you to block macros from running in Office files that come from the Internet. If you enable this policy setting, macros are blocked from running, even if "Enable all macr...Rule Medium Severity -
The opening of pre-release versions of file formats new to Excel 2013 through the Compatibility Pack for Office 2013 and Excel 2013 Converter must be blocked.
By default, users are prompted to update automatic links.Rule Medium Severity -
DTOO117 - Saved from URL
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DTOO123-Block Navigation to URL from Office
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DTOO129 - Block Pop-Ups
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DTOO131 - Trust Bar Notifications
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DTOO210 - Block opening of pre-release versions
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DTOO142 - Force Scan Encr. Macros in open XML
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DTOO134 - Trusted locations on computer
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DTOO139 - Save files default format
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DTOO146-Disable Trust access to VB Project Macros
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DTOO304 - VBA Macro Warning settings
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DTOO143 - Force File Extension to match type
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File types must be configured to provide mismatch warnings
Excel can load files with extensions that do not match the files' type. For example, if a comma-separated values (CSV) file named example.csv is renamed example.xls, Excel can properly load it as a...Rule Medium Severity -
DTOO138 - Internet and Network Path hyperlinks
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Internet links and Network UNCs created as embedded hyperlinks must be prevented.
When users type a string of characters, Excel recognizes as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) or Uniform Naming Convention (UNC) path to a resource on the Internet or a local network, Excel will tra...Rule Medium Severity -
DTOO140 - Disable AutoRepublish
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DTOO150 - Automatic Link Updates
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The Update of automatic links setting must be configured to prompt user before allowing links to be updated.
If an Excel workbook contains links to other documents and users are not prompted to approve them, the contents of the workbook might change without the users' knowledge because the linked files ha...Rule Medium Severity -
DTOO141 - AutoRepublish Warning Alert
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DTOO152 - Load pics from Web not in Excel
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The loading of images from web pages must not be allowed.
When users open web pages in Excel, Excel loads any graphics included in the pages, regardless of whether or not they were originally created in Excel. Allowing Excel to load graphics created in ot...Rule Medium Severity -
DTOO145 - Store macro in workbook
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DTOO126 - Add-on Management
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Add-on Management functionality must be allowed.
Internet Explorer add-ons are pieces of code, run in Internet Explorer, to provide additional functionality. Rogue add-ons may contain viruses or other malicious code. Disabling or not configuring ...Rule Medium Severity
Node 2
The content of the drawer really is up to you. It could have form fields, definition lists, text lists, labels, charts, progress bars, etc. Spacing recommendation is 24px margins. You can put tabs in here, and can also make the drawer scrollable.