SIMS linked documents issue with Word

[JohnRMoore]

Hi,

 

We have been advised by SIMS Support that to open our linked Word documents we now need to disable 'protected view for files originating from the internet' from within the Word trust center settings. Before I request this setting to be applied to all staff computers, is there any reason why disabling this security feature may be a bad idea?

 

PS has anyone got around this in a different way?

 

Thanks,

 

John

[mrcrazy04]

Protected view stops any active content, such as macros or DDE (dynamic data exchange - embedding stuff from programs or other Office documents); with the aim of reducing the risk posed by malicious Office documents sent via email or downloaded from the internet.

I'm not particularly familiar with SIMS, but would clicking "Enable Content" in Word do the trick?

 

If there are other technologies that help mitigate the risk (such as malware scanning on web and email gateways), then it might be easier to justify disabling protected view; but whether or not the risk is acceptable is probably a question for whoever is responsible for information security.

[JohnRMoore]

Good point. I have put it in the hands of our network team. If they say no, however, it will pose a mighty problem for us! Perhaps this is an unforseen risk of integrating with proprietary software. I have to find out of other schools have the same problem, but I imagine anyone who is running the latest version of Word will be affected.

[pete]

Your network team could set the URL of the SIMS document server as a trusted location in a GPO. Windows will treat simsserver:1234, simsserver.school.region.sch.uk:1234 and IPADDRESS:1234 differently when it applies the "is this from the Internet?" check.

 

You can set trusted locations in Office and Windows via group policy, so it may be worth checking how the document server URL is configured and then whitelisting it as a trusted location.

 

(NB: SIMS portnumber is not usually 1234, but when I put a colon and then "portnumber" next to each other I get a smiley).

Edited November 28, 2017 by pete