Security by McAfee

There is McAfee Endpoint Security running on my work computer. Yesterday I lost few hours with having it blocked by my computer. I turned the computer on in the morning but Endpoint Security (ES) did not accept my password with following message: Error EE0F0001: Token authentication parameters are incorrect. I was more carefull typing the password, I had to wait for a minute  but it failed again. The third attempt failed again (and pause doubled). Then I had to call to a service desk to unlock it via passphrase exchange. I was curios, if the error disappeared so I rebooted my computer,  typed carefully the password and the same problem occured again, but the wait time increased to 5 minutes.

So I called helpdesk again, we went through the same procedure and he told me to change my windows password. I did and I printed neccessary materials, then I rebooted the computer and tried again – 15 minutes wait time and passwors was not still accepted. Fourth unlock procedure and guy from helpdesk told me that I need to wait at least half an hour after password change before rebooting computer to let McAfee Endpoint security sync new password. Fine, I did it again, finished some important work, verified in ES that authentical token was synced recently and rebooted notebook again. I typed my password and it told me that it is blocked for 30 minutes now! I called the helpdesk again and he told me that I had to switch off the computer to reset this pause counter. When I did, I could login in immediatelly.

Well, friday was not very productive day. But i realized that to spoof McAfee’s security increasing pause you just need to turn the computer off.