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Network access: Let Everyone permissions apply to anonymous users

Applies to

  • Windows 11
  • Windows 10

Describes the best practices, location, values, policy management and security considerations for the Network access: Let Everyone permissions apply to anonymous users security policy setting.

Reference

This policy setting determines what other permissions are granted for anonymous connections to the device. If you enable this policy setting, anonymous users can enumerate the names of domain accounts and shared folders and perform certain other activities. This capability is convenient, for example, when an administrator wants to grant access to users in a trusted domain that doesn't maintain a reciprocal trust.

By default, the token that is created for anonymous connections doesn't include the Everyone SID. Therefore, permissions that are assigned to the Everyone group don't apply to anonymous users.

Possible values

  • Enabled

    The Everyone SID is added to the token that is created for anonymous connections, and anonymous users can access any resource for which the Everyone group has been assigned permissions.

  • Disabled

    The Everyone SID is removed from the token that is created for anonymous connections.

  • Not defined

Best practices

  • Set this policy to Disabled.

Location

Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Polices\Security Options

Default values

The following table lists the actual and effective default values for this policy. Default values are also listed on the policy’s property page.

Server type or GPO Default value
Default Domain Policy Not defined
Default Domain Controller Policy Not defined
Stand-Alone Server Default Settings Disabled
DC Effective Default Settings Disabled
Member Server Effective Default Settings Disabled
Client Computer Effective Default Settings Disabled

Policy management

This section describes features and tools that are available to help you manage this policy.

Restart requirement

None. Changes to this policy become effective without a device restart when they're saved locally or distributed through Group Policy.

Security considerations

This section describes how an attacker might exploit a feature or its configuration, how to implement the countermeasure, and the possible negative consequences of countermeasure implementation.

Vulnerability

An unauthorized user could anonymously list account names and shared resources and use the information to attempt to guess passwords, perform social engineering attacks, or launch DoS attacks.

Countermeasure

Disable the Network access: Let Everyone permissions apply to anonymous users setting.

Potential impact

None. This non-impact state is the default configuration.