The update to the McAfee Endpoint Security (ENS) antivirus program, released yesterday, brought much headaches to system administrators around the world.
The problem was that after installing the update, users could not log in on their computers.The first complaints about impaired Windows login appeared on the Reddit site. The corresponding branch reported that UK Power Networks employees could not log in to the system on their computers due to “mcafee system update”.
“McAfee changed something overnight in the amcore or exploit prevention content and users can no longer log on. No network connectivity, can only log on via safe mode”, — complains Therez1976 user.
Soon victims discovered that the root of the problem lay in updating the McAfee ENS Exploit Prevention component designed to combat exploits. It conflicted with the old version of ENS.
McAfee has published its own statement about this, stating that the problem is observed with the version of Exploit Prevent 9418. The developers quickly released an update to Exploit Prevent version 9419, in which this bug was fixed.
To fix the login problem manually, you will need to complete the following steps:
- Make sure Exploit Prevention is disabled.
- Boot the system in safe mode.
- Open the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\McAfee\Endpoint\Common\BusinessObjectRegistry\BO Set the value to “0”.
- Reboot the system.
