Organizations who cannot take advantage of these protections can set the FEATURE_BLOCK_CROSS_PROTOCOL_FILE_NAVIGATION registry key to avoid exploitation. Please note that while these registry settings would mitigate exploitation of this issue, it could affect regular functionality for certain use cases related to these applications.
MS Documentation for the referenced registry settings:
- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/internet-explorer/ie-developer/general-info/ee330731(v=vs.85)#file-protocol-navigation (Thank you @johnmccash)
$registryPath = "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\FEATURE_BLOCK_CROSS_PROTOCOL_FILE_NAVIGATION"
$applications = @("Excel.exe", "Graph.exe", "MSAccess.exe", "MSPub.exe", "PowerPnt.exe", "Visio.exe", "WinProj.exe", "WinWord.exe", "Wordpad.exe")
