STIGUI
V-221561CAT II — Medium severitySV-221561r960963_rule

Sites ability to show pop-ups must be disabled.

Rule version DTBC-0004 · STIG v2 · 2025-05-15

Discussion

Chrome allows you to manage whether unwanted pop-up windows appear. Pop-up windows that are opened when the end user clicks a link are not blocked. If you enable this policy setting, most unwanted pop-up windows are prevented from appearing. If you disable this policy setting, pop-up windows are not prevented from appearing. If you disable this policy setting, scripts can continue to create pop-up windows, and pop-ups that hide other windows. Recommend configuring this setting to ‘2’ to help prevent malicious websites from controlling the pop-up windows or fooling users into clicking on the wrong window. If you do not configure this policy setting, most unwanted pop-up windows are prevented from appearing. If this policy is left not set, 'BlockPopups' will be used and the user will be able to change it. 1 = Allow all sites to show pop-ups 2 = Do not allow any site to show pop-ups

Check

Universal method: 1. In the omnibox (address bar) type chrome://policy 2. If DefaultPopupsSetting is not displayed under the Policy Name column or it is not set to 2, then this is a finding.

Windows method: 1. Start regedit 2. Navigate to HKLM\Software\Policies\Google\Chrome\ 3. If the value name DefaultPopupsSetting does not exist or its value data is not set to 2, then this is a finding.

Note: If AO Approved exceptions to this rule have been enabled, this is not a finding.

Fix

Windows group policy: 1. Open the group policy editor tool with gpedit.msc 2. Navigate to Policy Path: Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Google\Google Chrome\Content Settings\ Policy Name: Default popups setting Policy State: Enabled Policy Value: Do not allow any site to show popups

Identifiers

Group ID
V-221561
Group title
SRG-APP-000141
Rule ID
SV-221561r960963_rule
Check ID
C-23276r570454_chk
Fix ID
F-23265r478203_fix