Severe Security Malfunctions – Microsoft Windows 10

As of November, 06^th 2020, we observed a press release from Microsoft discussing a severe security malfunction noticed in Microsoft’s operating system’s ongoing variant for personal computers. The very latest operating system by Microsoft for computing is windows 10. With about 06 on going variants, there are some issues and bugs with the system itself. This is very common for operating systems to contain bugs of versatile nature, but some flaws are serious. Unfortunately, Microsoft faced such a spot in this variant. Before Windows 10 20H2 version, Version 2004, was thought to be very stable and precise, along with features packed within. The built number 19041.173 failed to store and update passwords and even in some cases was unable to remember them for various sites, including Microsoft’s very own Outlook platform as well. The flaw was just identified and discussed in the press release, but no remedy was ever discussed or presented. The possible reason was also not mentioned officially. Still, after thorough digging into specifications, some speculating theories might have caused such a severe issue. First, we need to have a detailed look at the only possible reason given to my Microsoft officially. They mentioned that the problem occurs when some Windows 10 Task Scheduler Tasks are configured somehow. That’s all from Microsoft. Well, this does not define much. But let’s see what this translates in terms of programming and algorithm structure.

Windows 10 architecture

The DDL based security protocol that windows 10 utilizes is very stable at first. Whether a 32-bit system is an underuse or a 64 bit, the security protocol for both is very much similar. The DDL based architecture stores all sensitive data such as passwords in a secure vault within the system’s cache and recalls them when needed. Such a protocol was last found in Windows 7 and we all are well aware that windows 7 was very stable. To date, it shows pretty much stability even after several upgrades. Well, the up-gradation process might have hindered the architecture protocols of the DDL thread, which might have disrupted password storage services. We would like to mention here that it affects the online storage of passwords. Whereas the offline passwords are not affected by this bug. For instance, the login password remains unaffected, so do the zip file passwords and any sort of security credentials that might be used offline. This indicated that the bug was triggered via a tiny update file contained within the upgrade package.

Possible workaround

Like every other bug, a walk around in such a situation was expected. And the developers from outside Microsoft were smart enough to figure it out. The problem existed well before the version 2004 upgrade. It was noticed that various applications like OneDrive, Chrome, and Edge were failing to remember passwords and other credentials for the users. This created a lot of tension among the users and hence the consumers got frustrated. Fortunately, there is a solution out there, albeit a workaround one, rather than an actual operating system update fix to be released.

Still, that’s better than waiting until Microsoft issues a proper patch seeing as we have no idea of when that might be. Because a permanent and official fix has not to be rolled out yet, what can we do to prevent such a failure on every reboot. So, the central issue is caused by the task scheduler. It’s a temporary registry. That erases itself to store new entries every time a reboot is initiated. However, the directory is designed not to erase the essential credentials as the passwords and login information are stored. This bug causes these credentials to be deleted as well. So, disabling those tasks that consume the task scheduler can be a possible solution to this problem. Follow the steps described below to eliminate this issue on your computing device.

1. First of all, select the Windows PowerShell (remember to initiate it as an admin) from the Windows 10 start button followed by a right-click.
2. Conveniently copy and paste the following link into the Power shell interface, do not forget to start power shell as an administrator:

Get-ScheduledTask | foreach { If (([xml](Export-ScheduledTask -TaskName $_.TaskName -TaskPath $_.TaskPath)).GetElementsByTagName(“LogonType”).’#text’ -eq “S4U”) { $_.TaskName } }

• Once the entire link is copied into the Power Shell interface, press enters and observe any Tasks that are listed in the output window that indicates to be consuming the task scheduler.
• Open up the Windows Task Scheduler and disable those tasks by right-clicking on each one at a time.
• Now restart your device.

This will eliminate the bug that causes the credentials not to be remembered by Windows 10. Still, we should be very clear that this is not the official fix, nor it is released by Microsoft, if such a bug needs to be fixed, a complete system update would be required that would take quite some time. 

Impact on user confidence

For such a huge brand, like that of Microsoft, something that causes such an issue often takes down the operating system’s reputation. The point of concern is not that the windows fail to remember a password. The developers’ primary concern is the possibility of passwords and necessary credentials being compromised and falling into the wrong hands. If such a bug is not rectified officially by Microsoft, it might negatively impact the brand image.