Web Admin Console login error SME_SEC_NEED_CREDS

Products

• CA Client Automation - IT Client Manager
• CA Client Automation

Issue/Introduction

Login to Web Admin Console (WAC) fails with error 

"<%key%>:SME_SEC_NEED_CREDS The client must provide explicit credentials to complete authentication as unified logon is not available."

In DSM\logs\wac_log.log file, the following error is seen:

INFO c.c.w.u.DSMWebSession [ajp-nio-0.0.0.0-8020-exec-4] username:winnt://<ADName>/<username>
ERROR c.c.w.a.LoginAction [ajp-nio-0.0.0.0-8020-exec-4] The Exception raised to create the session with webservices 
javax.xml.ws.soap.SOAPFaultException: SME_SEC_NEED_CREDS The client must provide explicit credentials to complete authentication as unified logon is not available.
 at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.JaxWsClientProxy.mapException(JaxWsClientProxy.java:195) ~[cxf-rt-frontend-jaxws-3.5.11.jar:3.5.11]
 at org.apache.cxf.jaxws.JaxWsClientProxy.invoke(JaxWsClientProxy.java:145) ~[cxf-rt-frontend-jaxws-3.5.11.jar:3.5.11]
 at com.sun.proxy.$Proxy117.login(Unknown Source) ~[?:?]
 at com.ca.wac.utilities.DSMWebSession.login(DSMWebSession.java:73) ~[classes/:?]
 at com.ca.wac.utilities.DSMWebServiceSessionBean.initServiceStubs(DSMWebServiceSessionBean.java:206) ~[classes/:?]
 at com.ca.wac.utilities.DSMWebServiceSessionBean.<init>(DSMWebServiceSessionBean.java:95) ~[classes/:?]
 at com.ca.wac.actions.LoginAction.execute(LoginAction.java:97) [classes/:?]

Environment

Client Automation 14.6

Cause

This problem could occur if the & (Ampersand) character is in the user password.  

This can also occur if other special characters are included in the password (i.e. @, [, ., ~, &, _, ",-. &, %, #)

These special characters were accepted in previous ITCM versions.

Resolution

Contact Broadcom Support for a fix to address this issue.