74.11 (L1) Ensure 'Create Token' is set to 'No One'

Information

This policy setting allows a process to create an access token, which may provide elevated rights to access sensitive data.

The recommended state for this setting is: No One

Note: This user right is considered a 'sensitive privilege' for the purposes of auditing.

A user account that is given this user right has complete control over the system and can lead to the system being compromised. It is highly recommended that you do not assign any user accounts this right.

The operating system examines a user's access token to determine the level of the user's privileges. Access tokens are built when users log on to the local computer or connect to a remote computer over a network. When you revoke a privilege, the change is immediately recorded, but the change is not reflected in the user's access token until the next time the user logs on or connects. Users with the ability to create or modify tokens can change the level of access for any currently logged on account. They could escalate their own privileges or create a DoS condition.

Solution

To establish the recommended configuration via configuration profiles, set the following Settings Catalog path to (<![CDATA[]]>) which equals No One

User Rights\Create Token

Note: Using (<![CDATA[]]>) to represent a blank value or No One is recommended by Microsoft. However, there is a known issue where an error occurs in Endpoint Manger (Intune) but does not affect the policy setting from being applied to the system properly.

Impact:

None - this is the default behavior.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/benchmarks/16852