Maybe I am old now but I feel more and more everyday like Windows is becoming like a news feed. Nothing says "Enterprise-Grade Workstation" like stock tickers, celebrity news and weather widgets nobody asked for.
Because apparently your users need:
- Breaking news about Afroman's Trial
- Tiger Woods golf scores
- What Wolf Blitzer said on CNN over lunch
Right on the corporate endpoint
Meanwhile you're over here trying to reduce attack surface. Neat.
Is this the biggest security risk on the machine?
No.
Is it unnecessary, distracting and another place users can click in random junk?
Oh fer sure.
Give yourself the "clean" feeling all those shampoo commercials advertise and shut it off:
Open Registry Editor as admin
Go to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Dsh
If the key doesn’t exist, create Dsh
Create a DWORD (32-bit) value called:
AllowNewsAndInterests
Set it to: 0
What this does:
Disables "News and Interests / Widgets" on the device
What this does NOT do:
Block any kind of internet access, just removes yet another consumer ad surface from our tired eyes.
Trust me, if Karen needs the news, she can open a browser like the rest of us lol
(if you want a free guide of other hardening tips like this or a better/automated method of hardening configuration settings email me at hardeningtips@senteon.co 😉 )