This policy setting determines if the server side SMB service is able to sign SMB packets if it is requested to do so by a client that attempts to establish a connection. If no signing request comes from the client, a connection will be allowed without a signature if the Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (always) setting is not enabled. Note: Enable this policy setting on SMB clients on your network to make them fully effective for packet signing with all clients and servers in your environment. Countermeasure: Configure the settings as follows: * Disable Microsoft Network Client: Digitally Sign Communications (Always). * Disable Microsoft Network Server: Digitally Sign Communications (Always). * Microsoft Network Client: Digitally Sign Communications (If Server Agrees) to Enabled. * Microsoft Network Server: Digitally Sign Communications (If Client Agrees) to Enabled. In highly secure environments we recommend that you configure all of these settings to Enabled. However, that configuration may cause slower performance on client computers and prevent communications with earlier SMB applications and operating systems. Note An alternative countermeasure that could protect all network traffic would be to implement digital signatures with Internet Protocol security (IPsec). There are hardware-based accelerators for IPsec encryption and signing that could be used to minimize the performance impact on the servers' CPUs. No such accelerators are available for SMB signing. Potential Impact: The Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Professional, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP Professional and Windows Vista implementations of the SMB file and print sharing protocol support mutual authentication, which prevents session hijacking attacks and supports message authentication to prevent man-in-the-middle attacks. SMB signing provides this authentication by placing a digital signature into each SMB, which is then verified by both the client and the server. Implementation of SMB signing may negatively affect performance, because each packet needs to be signed and verified. If these settings are enabled on a server that is performing multiple roles, such as a small business server that is serving as a domain controller, file server, print server, and application server performance may be substantially slowed. Additionally, if you configure computers to ignore all unsigned SMB communications, older applications and operating systems will not be able to connect. However, if you completely disable all SMB signing, computers will be vulnerable to session hijacking attacks. When SMB signing policies are enabled on domain controllers running Windows Server 2003 and member computers running Windows Vista SP1 or Windows Server 2008 group policy processing will fail. A hotfix is available from Microsoft that resolves this issue; see Microsoft Knowledgebase Article 950876 for more details: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950876/." [enabled/disabled] (1) GPO: Computer Configuration\\Windows Settings\\Security Settings\\Local Policies\\Security Options\\Microsoft network server: Digitally sign communications (if client agrees) (2) REG: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\System\\CurrentControlSet\\Services\\LanManServer\\Parameters!enablesecuritysignature oval:org.secpod.oval:def:8380 BITS Shared Assessments SIG v6.0 Jericho Forum HIPAA/HITECH Act FedRAMP Security Controls(Final Release Jan 2012)--LOW IMPACT LEVEL-- ISO/IEC 27001-2005 COBIT 4.1 GAPP (Aug 2009) NERC CIP NIST SP800-53 R3 AC-3 NIST SP800-53 R3 CM-6 NIST SP800-53 R3 CM-7 NIST SP800-53 R3 SC-5 PCIDSS v2.0 FedRAMP Security Controls(Final Release Jan 2012)--MODERATE IMPACT LEVEL-- BITS Shared Assessments AUP v5.0 SCAP Repo OVAL Definition 2013-01-17 BITS Shared Assessments SIG v6.0 2012-10-12 Jericho Forum 2012-10-12 HIPAA/HITECH Act 2012-10-12 ISO/IEC 27001-2005 2012-10-12 COBIT 4.1 2012-10-12 GAPP (Aug 2009) 2012-10-12 NERC CIP 2012-10-12 NIST SP800-53 R3 2012-10-12 PCIDSS v2.0 2012-10-12 BITS Shared Assessments AUP v5.0 2012-10-12