What is the most common gap auditors find on UAH-ISM-1542?

Setting applied only to some Office applications

ACSC Essential Eight Maturity Model (November 2023) · User application hardening

`UAH-ISM-1542` Microsoft Office is configured to prevent activation of Object Linking and Embedding packages

Q: What evidence do auditors commonly ask for on UAH-ISM-1542 Microsoft Office is configured to prevent activation of Object Linking and Embedding packages?

Policy preventing activation of OLE packages in Office; Test with an embedded package.

Microsoft Office is configured to prevent activation of Object Linking and Embedding packages. Required at Maturity Levels Two and Three of the User application hardening mitigation strategy (Appendices B and C); ISM control ISM-1542 in ASD's Essential Eight to ISM mapping (December 2023).

Source: ACSC Essential Eight Maturity Model (November 2023), UAH-ISM-1542. The statement above is our statement of the clause, read from the published text and cited so you can check it against the official text, not the instrument verbatim. Open ACSC Essential Eight Maturity Model (November 2023) in the compliance library.

Each row is an ISM control the maturity model requires, with the maturity levels named in its text. Pick your target maturity level and use the rows for it.

artefacts

held by a system

at each review

hard

to go live

Policy repository / GRC workspace

where the evidence lives

teal = a system already holds it · olive = produced at each review. To go live: easy when half or more of the artefacts are already held by a system, moderate from a quarter to a half, hard below a quarter.

These are the artefacts auditors commonly ask for on this requirement, our guidance rather than text from the standard. Your assessor decides what is sufficient in your context, and asks for samples across the period when a report covers one.

system holds itEvidence a system already holds

none for this control

periodic reviewEvidence produced at each review

Test with an embedded package · Cloud console / configuration management

governing documentDocuments that govern the control

Policy preventing activation of OLE packages in Office · Policy repository / GRC workspace

First move

No system holds this evidence for you: it is people and documents. Reminders and routing to the owner still save time. Put the document under version control with an owner and review date, and log each review as a record with reviewer and date.

Common gaps auditors find

Setting applied only to some Office applications

Do this for your whole sheet

Paste the rows you run your controls from and get this mapping for every control at once, with the periodic-review ones flagged and a first move per row. No account for the first run.

Build my evidence sheet

UAH-ISM-1486 Web browsers do not process Java from the internet · UAH-ISM-1585 Web browser security settings cannot be changed by users