Admin page loads blank. Error on log : "Could not initialize class coldfusion.security.ESAPIUtils"

Server: Windows 2008, CF 9. Standalone server.

I found this reference:

"ESAPI.properties could not be loaded by any means. fail." causing "Could not initialize class coldfusion.security.ESAPI…

That points to this solution.

Add a file read permission to the esapi.properties file present in <CF_HOME>\lib directory for each sandbox. If you can not access CF Admin console manually add this permission in neo-security.xml which can be found in <CF_HOME>\lib directory.

Question: Since Im not running it on a sandbox, who do you apply the read permission to on the xml file?