"local security authority could not be found"

This error message has been popping up a lot at work and took me a while to figure out 1. what is causing it and 2. how to fix it.

Here is what I have gathered so far:

1. The error is caused by a incorrect password be cached into memory somewhere then trying to be submitted to a server requesting authentication via web page


2. I Have experienced it while trying to access pages on a Microsoft Sharepoint server


3. It usually occurs if you either have your browser to authenticate you to the page automatically either with the credentials you use to log in, or with credentials previously saved or if you have previously saved credentials and click ok when the pre-filled authentication window pops up.


4. The only resolution I have found for this is to force the website to ask for authentication. You can do this by going into your internet security properties and under the custom settings select the option that forces a prompt for authentication rather than using saved credentials. Be sure to do this for all zones, since if you do it just for the internet zone, and this is on an intranet, it wont effect it.

Comment if you find out anything else. For now we have just set the group policy to force everyone to always authenticate, it seems to be working.

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