Information
This policy setting allows you to manage whether the Windows Remote Management (WinRM) client uses Basic authentication.
The recommended state for this setting is: Disabled
Note: Clients that use Microsoft's Exchange Online service (Office 365) will require an exception to this recommendation, to instead have this setting set to Enabled. Exchange Online uses Basic authentication over HTTPS, and so the Exchange Online authentication traffic will still be safely encrypted.
Basic authentication is less robust than other authentication methods available in WinRM because credentials including passwords are transmitted in plain text. An attacker who is able to capture packets on the network where WinRM is running may be able to determine the credentials used for accessing remote hosts via WinRM.
Solution
To establish the recommended configuration via configuration profiles, set the following Settings Catalog path to Disabled
Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Remote Management (WinRM)\WinRM Client\Allow Basic authentication
Impact:
None - this is the default behavior.