Internet Explorer 11 causing Cyber Essentials Plus failure

Internet Explorer has reached its end-of-life date and all organisations should ensure it is removed to help protect their systems, and avoid failing Cyber Essentials Plus says Euan Henderson – Cyber Technologist and Cyber Essentials assessor

If an unsupported installation is found during a Cyber Essentials Plus audit, it would result in an automatic fail.

To remove IE11 the following steps are recommended:

1. Ensure you have the prerequisite operating system updates. This step will update the ADMX files on your machine directly (specifically inetres.adml and inetres.admx). Please note that if you want to update your Central Store, you should copy over the .adml and .admx files from a machine that has the prerequisite updates, or download the latest Windows 10 Admin templates from here. For more information, see Create and manage Central Store
2. Open the Group Policy Editor.
3. Go to Computer Configuration/Administrative Templates/Windows Components/Internet Explorer.
4. Double-click Disable Internet Explorer 11 as a standalone browser.
5. Select Enabled.
6. Under Options, pick one of the following values:
   • Never if you don’t want to notify users that IE11 is disabled.
   • Always if you want to notify users every time they’re redirected from IE11.
   • Once per user if you want to notify users only the first time they are redirected.
7. Select OK or Apply to save this policy setting

Please be aware however, that Internet Explorer has only become end of life on a select few operating systems such as Windows 10 and 11.

Windows Server, Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 (under Extended Security Update subscription) currently support IE11

For more information please see the following links:

• Disable Internet Explorer 11 | Microsoft Docs
• Lifecycle FAQ – Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge | Microsoft Docs