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6.8 Set 'Hide Junk Mail UI' to 'Disabled'

Information

This policy setting controls whether the Junk E-mail Filter is enabled in Outlook. The Junk
E-mail Filter in Outlook is designed to intercept the most obvious junk e-mail, or spam, and
send it to users' Junk E-mail folders. The filter evaluates each incoming message based on
several factors, including the time when the message was sent and the content of the
message. The filter does not single out any particular sender or message type, but instead
analyzes each message based on its content and structure to discover whether or not it is
probably spam. If you enable this policy setting, junk e-mail filtering in Outlook is turned
off entirely, in addition to hiding the filtering controls from users. In addition, you can use
the 'Junk E-mail Protection level' policy setting to preset a filtering level and prevent users
from changing it. Note - This policy setting does not affect the configuration of the
Microsoft Exchange Server Intelligent Message Filter (IMF), which provides server-level
junk e-mail filtering. If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, the Junk E-mail
Filter in Outlook is enabled. The recommended state for this setting is- Disabled.

*Rationale*

The Junk E-mail Filter in Outlook 2010 is designed to intercept the most obvious junk e-
mail, or spam, and send it to users' Junk E-mail folders. The filter evaluates each incoming
message based on several factors, including the time when the message was sent and the
content of the message. The filter does not single out any particular sender or message
type, but instead analyzes each message based on its content and structure to discover
whether or not it is probably spam. By default, the Junk E-mail Filter in Outlook 2010 is
enabled. If this configuration is changed, users can receive large amounts of junk e-mail in
their Inboxes, which could make it difficult for them to work with business-related e-mail
messages.

Solution

To implement the recommended configuration state, set the following Group Policy setting
to Disabled.

User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Microsoft Outlook 2010\Outlook
Options\Preferences\Junk E-mail\Hide Junk Mail UI

Impact-The name of this setting is somewhat misleading, as enabling it turns off junk e-mail
filtering in Outlook 2010 entirely, in addition to hiding the filtering controls from users.
You can use the 'Junk E-mail Protection level' setting to preset a filtering level and prevent
users from changing it. This setting does not affect the configuration of the Microsoft
Exchange Server Intelligent Message Filter (IMF), which provides server-level junk e-mail
filtering.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/530

Item Details

Category: SYSTEM AND INFORMATION INTEGRITY

References: 800-53|SI-8a.

Plugin: Windows

Control ID: e879da0a0ca6a14f40eb35f692a218bb3cb7d64fe50f9b5cc9ef11463fc4578d