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Microsoft Exchange 2013 Mailbox Server Security Technical Implementation Guide

Rules, Groups, and Values defined within the XCCDF Benchmark

  • Exchange must have Administrator audit logging enabled.

    Unauthorized or malicious data changes can compromise the integrity and usefulness of the data. Automated attacks or malicious users with elevated privileges have the ability to effect change using...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Exchange Connectivity logging must be enabled.

    A connectivity log is a record of the SMTP connection activity of the outbound message delivery queues to the destination Mailbox server, smart host, or domain. Connectivity logging is available on...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • The Exchange Email Diagnostic log level must be set to the lowest level.

    Log files help establish a history of activities, and can be useful in detecting attack attempts or determining tuning adjustments to improve availability. Diagnostic logging, however, characterist...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Exchange Queue monitoring must be configured with threshold and action.

    Monitors are automated "process watchers" that respond to performance changes and can be useful in detecting outages and alerting administrators where attention is needed. Exchange has built-in mon...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Exchange must protect audit data against unauthorized read access.

    Log files help establish a history of activities and can be useful in detecting attack attempts or determining tuning adjustments to improve availability. Audit log content must always be considere...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Exchange must protect audit data against unauthorized access.

    Log files help establish a history of activities and can be useful in detecting attack attempts or determining tuning adjustments to improve availability. Audit log content must always be considere...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Exchange Mailbox databases must reside on a dedicated partition.

    In the same way that added security layers can provide a cumulative positive effect on security posture, multiple applications can provide a cumulative negative effect. A vulnerability and subseque...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Exchange internal Receive connectors must require encryption.

    The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Receive connector is used by Exchange to send and receive messages from server to server using SMTP protocol. This setting controls the encryption strength ...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Exchange internal Send connectors must require encryption.

    The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) connector is used by Exchange to send and receive messages from server to server. There are several controls that work together to provide security between ...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Exchange email-forwarding SMTP domains must be restricted.

    Auto-forwarded email accounts do not meet the requirement for digital signature and encryption of CUI and PII IAW DoDI 8520.2 (reference ee) and DoD Director for Administration and Management memor...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Exchange Mail Quota settings must not restrict receiving mail.

    Mail quota settings control the maximum sizes of a user’s mailbox and the system’s response if these limits are exceeded. Mailbox data that is not monitored against a quota increases the risk of ma...
    Rule Low Severity
  • Exchange Message size restrictions must be controlled on Receive connectors.

    Email system availability depends in part on best practice strategies for setting tuning configurations. For message size restrictions, multiple places exist to set or override inbound or outbound ...
    Rule Low Severity
  • Exchange Send connectors delivery retries must be controlled.

    This setting controls the rate at which delivery attempts from the home domain are retried and user notifications are issued and notes the expiration time when the message will be discarded. If ...
    Rule Low Severity
  • The Exchange Outbound Connection Limit per Domain Count must be controlled.

    Email system availability depends in part on best practice strategies for setting tuning configurations. This configuration controls the maximum number of simultaneous outbound connections from a d...
    Rule Low Severity
  • Exchange Internal Receive connectors must not allow anonymous connections.

    This control is used to limit the servers that may use this server as a relay. If a Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) sender does not have a direct connection to the Internet (for example, an a...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Exchange must have antispam filtering enabled.

    Originators of spam messages are constantly changing their techniques in order to defeat spam countermeasures; therefore, spam software must be constantly updated to address the changing threat. A ...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • Exchange servers must have an approved DoD email-aware virus protection software installed.

    With the proliferation of trojans, viruses, and spam attaching themselves to email messages (or attachments), it is necessary to have capable email-aware antivirus (AV) products to scan messages an...
    Rule High Severity
  • The Exchange Public Store storage quota must be limited.

    This setting controls the maximum sizes of a public folder and the system’s response if these limits are exceeded. There are two available controls and the system response when the quota has been e...
    Rule Low Severity
  • Exchange services must be documented and unnecessary services must be removed or disabled.

    Unneeded but running services offer attackers an enhanced attack profile, and attackers are constantly watching to discover open ports with running services. By analyzing and disabling unneeded ser...
    Rule Medium Severity
  • The Exchange Email application must not share a partition with another application.

    In the same way that added security layers can provide a cumulative positive effect on security posture, multiple applications can provide a cumulative negative effect. A vulnerability and subseque...
    Rule Medium Severity

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