OpenControls Logo

STIG Viewer

STIGViewer Support

Exchange Email Subject Line logging must be disabled.

Overview

Finding IDVersionRule IDIA ControlsSeverity
V-228361EX16-MB-000080SV-228361r879566_ruleCCI-000133medium
Description
Log files help establish a history of activities and can be useful in detecting attack attempts or determining tuning adjustments to improve availability. When "message tracking" is enabled, only the sender, recipients, time, and other delivery information is included by default. Information such as the subject and message body is not included. However, the absence of the message subject line can make it difficult to locate a specific message in the log unless one knows roughly what time the message was sent. To simplify searches through these logs, Exchange offers the ability to include the message "subject line" in the log files and in the Message Tracking Center display. This can make it significantly easier to locate a specific message. However, this feature creates larger log files and will contain information that may raise privacy and legal concerns. Enterprise policy should be consulted before this feature is enabled. Also, because the log files may contain sensitive information in the form of the subject line, the log files will need to be protected, commensurate with the sensitivity level, as the content may be of interest to an attacker. For these reasons, it is recommended that subject logging not be enabled during regular production operations. Instead, treat this feature as a diagnostic that can be used if needed. The tradeoff is that finding the correct message in the message tracking logs will become more difficult because the administrator will need to search using only the time the message was sent and the message’s sender. This control will have no effect unless Message Tracking is enabled. However, the setting should be disabled in case message tracking is enabled in the future.
STIGDate
Microsoft Exchange 2016 Mailbox Server Security Technical Implementation Guide2023-12-18

Related Frameworks

1 mapping across 5 frameworks
SCF0 mappings

No source states a mapping between these directly.

Also reachable in 3 hops (3) derived by us, not asserted by any source

Each of these is a route we composed by chaining published mappings. No publisher states a relationship between the two endpoints.

MON-01Continuous Monitoring
1.00
MON-01.4System Generated Alerts
1.00
MON-03Content of Event Logs
1.00
NIST 800-530 mappings

No source states a mapping between these directly.

Also reachable in 2 hops (47) derived by us, not asserted by any source

Each of these is a route we composed by chaining published mappings. No publisher states a relationship between the two endpoints.

AC-16Security and Privacy Attributes
1.00
AC-17(1)Monitoring and Control
1.00
AC-2(4)Automated Audit Actions
1.00
AC-3(3)Mandatory Access Control
1.00
AC-4Information Flow Enforcement
1.00
AC-6(9)Log Use of Privileged Functions
1.00
AU-10Non-repudiation
1.00
AU-12Audit Record Generation
1.00
AU-12(3)Changes by Authorized Individuals
1.00
AU-14(1)System Start-up
1.00

+37 more (top 10 by confidence shown)

NIST 800-1710 mappings

No source states a mapping between these directly.

Also reachable in 3 hops (2) derived by us, not asserted by any source

Each of these is a route we composed by chaining published mappings. No publisher states a relationship between the two endpoints.

3.3.1
1.00
3.3.2
1.00
CCI1 mapping
CCI-000133
1.00
NIST CSF 2.00 mappings

No source states a mapping between these directly.

Also reachable in 3 hops (1) derived by us, not asserted by any source

Each of these is a route we composed by chaining published mappings. No publisher states a relationship between the two endpoints.

PR.PS-04
1.00

Who does this work

6 NICE work roles and 5 EC-Council certifications.

This is an inference across published mappings, not a single claim by anyone. This check maps to a control, which maps to a Cybersecurity Framework outcome, which NIST assigns to the work roles below. EC-Council separately maps its certifications to those same roles.

A certification prepares someone for a role. It is not evidence that a holder is qualified, and neither NIST nor EC-Council has stated that any certification here addresses this check.

Work-role assignments published by NIST (NICE Framework Components 2.2.0 and the CSF 2.0 OLIR crosswalk). Certification mappings published by EC-Council.

Details

Check Text (C-228361r879566_chk)

Open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command: Get-TransportService | Select Name, Identity, MessageTrackingLogSubjectLoggingEnabled If the value of “MessageTrackingLogSubjectLoggingEnabled” is not set to “False”, this is a finding.

Fix Text (F-30579r496880_fix)

Open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command: Set-Transportservice -MessageTrackingLogSubjectLoggingEnabled $False