How were the USGCB settings for Windows 7 and Internet Explorer 8 (IE 8) developed?
The Department of Defense (DoD), with NIST assistance, developed the Windows 7 and IE configuration settings. They field-tested these settings on typical enterprise-connected desktop and laptop computers, and submitted the configuration settings to the NIST National Checklist Program (NCP) as the DoD Consensus Security Configuration Checklist for Microsoft IE 8 Revision 1.0, and the DoD Consensus Security Configuration Checklist for Microsoft Windows 7 Revision 1.0. These checklists were posted to checklists.nist.gov according to the process detailed in NIST SP800-70 Revision 1. NIST, at the request of the Federal CIO Council’s Architecture and Infrastructure Committee’s (AIC) Technology Infrastructure Subcommittee (TIS), evaluated these settings for Federal civilian agency use, normalized them with existing recommendations for Windows platforms, and recommend them to the TIS of what should be considered for Federal-wide adoption.
