Why does windows take much time for login window to reappear when password is wrong?

Question

It is a general problem with windows7. When i try to login and password is right, it will login instantaneously, but when the password is wrong, it takes more then 10 sec for login window to reappear.

Microsoft does not share its code, so it becomes difficult to guess, but i believe i can get a descent answer from stackoverflow community.

Answer 1

Interesting observations.

I can only guess it's the old thing of: one way to frustrate an attacker is to slow them up when they answer wrong. I use this idea in some of my code. Just call sleep for awhile.