SV-266981r1169858: FriendlyURLs must be disabled. | Microsoft Edge STIG SCAP Benchmark

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Assessment Title

Rule Text

FriendlyURLs must be disabled.

Description

Discussion Text

If FriendlyURLs are enabled, Microsoft Edge will compute additional representations of the URL and place them on the clipboard. This policy configures what format will be pasted when the user pastes in external applications, or inside Microsoft Edge without the "Paste As" context menu item. If configured, this policy makes a choice on behalf of the user. The options in edge://settings/shareCopyPaste will be grayed out, and the options in the "Paste As" context menu will not be available. Not configured = The user will be able to choose their preferred paste format. By default, this is set to the friendly URL format. The "Paste As" menu will be available in Microsoft Edge. 1 = No additional formats will be stored on the clipboard. There will be no "Paste as" context menu item in Microsoft Edge and the only format available to paste will be the plain text URL format. Effectively, the friendly URL feature will be disabled. 3 = The user will get a friendly URL whenever they paste into surfaces that accept rich text. The plain URL will still be available for non-rich surfaces. There will be no "Paste As" menu in Microsoft Edge. 4 = (Not currently used) The richer formats may not be well-supported in some paste destinations and/or websites. In these scenarios, the plain URL option is recommended when configuring this policy. The recommended policy is available in Microsoft Edge 105 or later. Policy options mapping: PlainText (1) = The plain URL without any extra information, such as the page's title. This is the recommended option when this policy is configured. For more information, see the description. TitledHyperlink (3) = Titled Hyperlink: A hyperlink that points to the copied URL, but whose visible text is the title of the destination page. This is the Friendly URL format.

How this relates to the STIG checklist: STIG vs SCAP benchmark.

IA Controls

NIST SP 800-53

Not mappedCCI-000381

References

DPMS Target Microsoft Edge DISA DPMS Target Microsoft Edge 5280

Checks

DISA STIG (Manual Reference)

The policy value for "Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Microsoft Edge/Configure the default paste format of URLs copied from Microsoft Edge and determine if additional formats will be available to users" must be set to "enabled" with the option value set to "The plain URL without any extra information, such as the page´s title. This is the recommended option when this policy is configured. For more information, see the description.".

Use the Windows Registry Editor to navigate to the following key:
HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge

If the value for "ConfigureFriendlyURLFormat" is not set to "REG_DWORD = 1", this is a finding.

SCC Automation Reference

The reconstructed evaluation script behind this rule's OVAL check(s) — every module a compound check combines, with this rule's own concrete values and DISA's SCC tool's real per-module mechanism curated from static teardown of SCC releases.

# Windows PowerShell
# Reconstructed from oval:mil.disa.stig.edge:def:266981
# FriendlyURLs must be disabled.
# Per-module read mechanism curated from static teardown of DISA's SCC tool
# (SCAP Compliance Checker) -- see the SCC Automation Reference above.

# FriendlyURLs is enabled
# registry_object (registry_test)
function test_1 {
  return (((@{String='reg_sz';ExpandString='reg_expand_sz';Binary='reg_binary';DWord='reg_dword';MultiString='reg_multi_sz';QWord='reg_qword';None='reg_none'}[(Get-Item -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge').GetValueKind('ConfigureFriendlyURLFormat').ToString()]) -eq 'reg_dword') -and (((Get-ItemProperty -Path 'Registry::HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge' -Name 'ConfigureFriendlyURLFormat' -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue) | Select-Object -ExpandProperty 'ConfigureFriendlyURLFormat') -eq 1))
}

if (test_1) {
  Write-Output "PASS"
} else {
  Write-Output "FAIL"
}

Assessment Script Powered by AISyntax-verified

A standalone PowerShell script to assess this control automatically. Review before running it in your environment.

Syntax-checked as valid PowerShell. Not executed here — running it for real needs the actual ms_edge target this check assesses.

# OVAL Definition: oval:mil.disa.stig.edge:def:266981
$compliant = Test-Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge\ConfigureFriendlyURLFormat" -and ((Get-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Edge\ConfigureFriendlyURLFormat").value -eq 1)
if ($compliant) { Write-Output "PASS"; exit 0 } else { Write-Output "FAIL"; exit 1 }

Remediation

Set the policy value for "Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Microsoft EdgeConfigure the default paste format of URLs copied from Microsoft Edge, and determine if additional formats will be available to users" to "enabled" and select "The plain URL without any extra information, such as the page's title. This is the recommended option when this policy is configured. For more information, see the description."