lsass.exe is an executable which is related to the Local Security Authority Subsystem Service. lsass.exe is a popular executable file that runs on Windows operating systems in order to authenticate users, logins and permissions. lsass.exe is very crucial because of its importance and gets a lot of attacks in order to get higher privileges like Administrator from the hackers.
Local Security Authority Subsystem Service
Local Security Authority Subsystem Service is a service used to manage local security, login, and permissions.It is also responsible for enforcing security policy on Windows operating systems. The “lsass.exe” is the executable file and service of the “Local Security Authority Subsystem Service”.
lsass.exe Location or Path
“lsass.exe” is located under the Windows operating system folder “System32” folder. The complete or absolute path is “C:\Windows\System32” is the Windows operating system is installed on partition “C:”. The absolute path is %WINDIR%\System32 which is free of operating system partition path.
Is lsass.exe Spyware or Virus?
By default and originally the “lsass.exe” is not a spyware or virus. It is originally provided by the Windows operating system and created for authorization, login, permission, etc. which makes it very important for security. In some cases, hackers, attackers, trojans, viruses, malware can modify the “lsass.exe” and add some extra code to this file.
If you think it is infected and want to remove the spyware, virus, or malware use antivirus software in order to complete this job. Do not try to remove manually the “lsass.exe” which will crash the system because it is a crucial and critical system process where the operating system relies on it.
Is It Safe To Remove/End lsass.exe from Task Manager?
Simply the answer is “No”. Removing or ending the “lsass.exe” from the task manager is not safe because by default it can not removed from the task manager because it is ciritical system process and if we try to remove from the task manager we will get the followin error.
This is a critical system process. Task Manager cannot end this process.
We can see that the “lsass.exe” file provides 3 services named CNG Key Isolation ,Security Accounts Manager , Encrypting File System .
But we can enforce the “lsass.exe” to end which will show the following screen which means ending the lsass.exe will reboot the system and all unsaved data may lost.
We will see the following warning where the system will be restart in 1 minute.
