Security

[George Hester]

What good is Group Policy set on the domain controller when a client with domain user (default) access can have the
policy violated by the security vulnerabilities of Microsoft Internet Explorer? I don't understand this these issues have
existed from day 1 of Modern NT and I am sure they're continuing.

 

[Simon Geary]

What vulnerabilities in particular are you referring to? I am not aware of
any IE security holes that will allow Group Policy to be overridden, could
you flesh this out with some more detail?

What good is Group Policy set on the domain controller when a client with
domain user (default) access can have the
policy violated by the security vulnerabilities of Microsoft Internet
Explorer? I don't understand this these issues have
existed from day 1 of Modern NT and I am sure they're continuing.

 

[Andrew Mitchell]

What vulnerabilities in particular are you referring to? I am not aware of
any IE security holes that will allow Group Policy to be overridden, could
you flesh this out with some more detail?

He's just a whinger compaining that a web page can overwrite the homepage
setting defined in a GPO. He's complained about this before.
news://[email protected]

Doesn't want a solution. Just wants to vent a little I guess.

 

[George Hester]

Not exactly. It's easy enough to call me a whiner when security fails. What would you like for me to show that although
I may be whinning the issue still occurs or is for you "whinning" the be all and end all of the issue?

I had set Group Policy on the domain controller so that the client could not change their homepage. Obviously that
worked for changing the homepage on the client was unavailable. Now you tell me what more I could have done?
Changing the homepage on the client was UNAVAILABLE. GREYED OUT. NOT POSSIBLE TO CHANGE THE
HOME PAGE ON THE CL:IENT. Please tell me what more I could have done?

The client while connected to the domain controller visited a page on the net that used IE vulernabilities to change the
home page. The new homepage was UNAVAILABLE on the client to change. GREYED OUT. NOT POSSIBLE
TO CHANGE THE HOME PAGE ON THE CLIENT.

I had to remove the Group Policy so that I could restore the client's homepage AND clean out the registry entries that
were changed. The client had no access to the registry but the IE security issues sure did. Whinning OK. These
security issues will never be fixed if that is all you consider is important here. I think it is IE security issues and you think
it is "whinning." No wonder these issues persist.

 

[Andrew Mitchell]

Not exactly. It's easy enough to call me a whiner when security fails.
What would you like for me to show that although I may be whinning the
issue still occurs or is for you "whinning" the be all and end all of
the issue?

I had set Group Policy on the domain controller so that the client could
not change their homepage. Obviously that worked for changing the
homepage on the client was unavailable. Now you tell me what more I
could have done? Changing the homepage on the client was UNAVAILABLE.
GREYED OUT. NOT POSSIBLE TO CHANGE THE HOME PAGE ON THE CL:IENT.
Please tell me what more I could have done?

I don't know. You haven't provided anywhere near enough information.

The client while connected to the domain controller visited a page on
the net that used IE vulernabilities to change the home page. The new
homepage was UNAVAILABLE on the client to change. GREYED OUT. NOT
POSSIBLE TO CHANGE THE HOME PAGE ON THE CLIENT.

I had to remove the Group Policy

You don't need to remove the GPO. Just temporarily move the user to an OU
that's not affected by it.

so that I could restore the client's
homepage AND clean out the registry entries that were changed.

Which registry keys were changed?

The
client had no access to the registry but the IE security issues sure
did.

IE runs in the context of the user. It cannot alter keys that the user has
no permissions to alter. Preventing regedit from running does not protect
the registry. It just stops regedit from running. There are a number of
other ways of altering the registry.

Whinning OK. These security issues will never be fixed if that is
all you consider is important here. I think it is IE security issues
and you think it is "whinning." No wonder these issues persist.

So instead of just stating that it happened, why don't you tell us exactly
what happened (which reg keys were altered etc.) so that someone can come
up with a solution?

So far all you have done is made very vague posts stating that the users
homepage setting was altered despite settings you have set in a GPO. You
made no request for assistance and didn't ask for any opinions on how to
prevent this via other settings or patches.

 

[Ken B]

As a further follow up, George, you need to remember that we're not
Microsoft in the newsgroup (ok, a few people are, but the majority of us
aren't). We're almost all common folk with a few troubles here and there,
and others who may have a little more experience and be able to offer their
personal expertise on the subject.

Sure, I'm not happy when a user's homepage deviates from my gpo, but is the
change in a homepage really showing a lack of security? It tends to happen
on computers here where my users have local admin rights and have little
pieces (ok, sometimes BIG pieces) of spyware on their computer. There may
be a larger problem you have to worry about. But if you don't like your
users going to that webpage, utilize a proxy server or firewall to disallow
connections to that specific website. The users will call and complain the
internet is down, as it tells them "Page not found"

Have a good weekend

Ken

 

[George Hester]

I don't know if I can provide anymore information than that which I have provided. The user did have admin rights that was signed on at the time. That's true and was a mstake. That won't happen again. But the GPO was still violated and it was not changed. In other words the GPO was still active.

I cannot suggest all the excuses of why the GPO may have been violated. I just know it was set and was violated. I also know that it was not possible for anyone to reset the homepage from Windows GUI for that purpose. Admin or no admin. The Internet nasty used IE vulnerabilities to reset the homepage in the registry. Where? Obviosly:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

or

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

not sure which I had to go into to fix the issue.

But in any case if we set GPO so that policies are obtained is it too much to ask that they do hold? How am I going to set a GPO for the client when the user signed in has Admin rights? Would their not being Domain admin or Ennterprise Admin rights be sufficient to stop these IE vulnerabilities from changing this GPO? If so I'll take them out of it. The trouble is I don't want to run into Installation issues.

Thanks.

--
George Hester
_________________________________

As a further follow up, George, you need to remember that we're not
Microsoft in the newsgroup (ok, a few people are, but the majority of us
aren't). We're almost all common folk with a few troubles here and there,
and others who may have a little more experience and be able to offer their
personal expertise on the subject.

Sure, I'm not happy when a user's homepage deviates from my gpo, but is the
change in a homepage really showing a lack of security? It tends to happen
on computers here where my users have local admin rights and have little
pieces (ok, sometimes BIG pieces) of spyware on their computer. There may
be a larger problem you have to worry about. But if you don't like your
users going to that webpage, utilize a proxy server or firewall to disallow
connections to that specific website. The users will call and complain the
internet is down, as it tells them "Page not found"

Have a good weekend

Ken

 

[m]

If you set a DACL on the registry keys, you can prevent any user from
changing them. It won't matter how (IE GUI or any other method) they just
won't have any permission.

The policy that you set did what it claimed to do - the GUI is not avaiable.
But any program that runs in a user context that has permission to write to
those keys, can change the value.

I don't know if I can provide anymore information than that which I have
provided. The user did have admin rights that was signed on at the time.
That's true and was a mstake. That won't happen again. But the GPO was
still violated and it was not changed. In other words the GPO was still
active.

I cannot suggest all the excuses of why the GPO may have been violated. I
just know it was set and was violated. I also know that it was not possible
for anyone to reset the homepage from Windows GUI for that purpose. Admin
or no admin. The Internet nasty used IE vulnerabilities to reset the
homepage in the registry. Where? Obviosly:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

or

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

not sure which I had to go into to fix the issue.

But in any case if we set GPO so that policies are obtained is it too much
to ask that they do hold? How am I going to set a GPO for the client when
the user signed in has Admin rights? Would their not being Domain admin or
Ennterprise Admin rights be sufficient to stop these IE vulnerabilities from
changing this GPO? If so I'll take them out of it. The trouble is I don't
want to run into Installation issues.

Thanks.

--
George Hester
_________________________________

As a further follow up, George, you need to remember that we're not
Microsoft in the newsgroup (ok, a few people are, but the majority of us
aren't). We're almost all common folk with a few troubles here and there,
and others who may have a little more experience and be able to offer their
personal expertise on the subject.

Sure, I'm not happy when a user's homepage deviates from my gpo, but is the
change in a homepage really showing a lack of security? It tends to happen
on computers here where my users have local admin rights and have little
pieces (ok, sometimes BIG pieces) of spyware on their computer. There may
be a larger problem you have to worry about. But if you don't like your
users going to that webpage, utilize a proxy server or firewall to disallow
connections to that specific website. The users will call and complain the
internet is down, as it tells them "Page not found"

Have a good weekend

Ken

 

[Andrew Mitchell]

I don't know if I can provide anymore information than that which I have
provided. The user did have admin rights that was signed on at the
time. That's true and was a mstake. That won't happen again. But the
GPO was still violated and it was not changed.

The GPO was not 'violated'. The GPO is intended to prevent users using the
IE GUI (Tools/Options etc....) to change the homepage. From what you have
stated, the user in question downloaded a program or script which changed
the Homepage. They did not use the IE GUI to achieve this. The GPO worked
as designed.

In other words the GPO
was still active.

I cannot suggest all the excuses of why the GPO may have been violated.
I just know it was set and was violated. I also know that it was not
possible for anyone to reset the homepage from Windows GUI for that
purpose. Admin or no admin. The Internet nasty used IE vulnerabilities
to reset the homepage in the registry. Where? Obviosly:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

or

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

not sure which I had to go into to fix the issue.

But in any case if we set GPO so that policies are obtained is it too
much to ask that they do hold?

George,
The GPO only locks down the client application - In this case IE.
If the user downloads another program to bypass IE or uses another method
to directly access the registry your GPO will not help. This is not a flaw.
The only way to achieve what you appear to want is by setting appropriate
permissions on the relevant registry key.

How am I going to set a GPO for the
client when the user signed in has Admin rights?

Use ACL's on the registry key. Prevent the user from changing it.

Would their not being
Domain admin or Ennterprise Admin rights be sufficient to stop these IE
vulnerabilities from changing this GPO?

Generally speaking, users should never be members of the local
administrators group.

If so I'll take them out of it.
The trouble is I don't want to run into Installation issues.

If you use msi packages for your software installation you can use GPO's to
deploy the apps. This will allow for non-admin users to install the
applications you allow.