What does NTSTATUS 0xC000006B (STATUS_ILL_FORMED_PASSWORD) mean?

 
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STATUS_WRONG_PASSWORD STATUS_PASSWORD_RESTRICTION

STATUS_ILL_FORMED_PASSWORD

The password value is malformed for the password-change operation

This status is returned while changing or setting a password when the proposed value is not acceptable as a password string for that path. It is not the same as entering the wrong current password.

The relevant evidence is the password-change API, domain password policy, encoding path, and whether a legacy compatibility layer such as LM password conversion is involved.

What to inspect

  • Do not log the password itself; log policy and API context instead.
  • Check password length, Unicode handling, history/complexity policy, and legacy conversion constraints.
  • Separate this from STATUS_PASSWORD_RESTRICTION and STATUS_WRONG_PASSWORD if those exist elsewhere in the flow.

References


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