Understanding Exchange Online Authentication with the April 2020 Update
As the cloud continues to evolve and become more powerful, it’s important to keep up with the changes and understand how they impact your business. With the April 2020 release of Exchange Online, Microsoft has introduced a number of improvements to authentication, making it easier and more secure to access your mailboxes.
In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the new authentication features introduced in the April 2020 update, and discuss how they will impact your organization. We’ll also provide some tips for keeping your data secure.
Basic Authentication
Exchange Online introduced basic authentication in April 2020. This is an authentication method that uses username and password credentials to authenticate a user.
Basic authentication is an important security feature, as it helps protect user accounts from unauthorized access. It also reduces the need for users to remember multiple passwords, as they can use the same credentials for all their Exchange Online services.
Multi-Factor Authentication
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is an authentication method that requires users to enter multiple pieces of information to gain access to their accounts.
Exchange Online provides two MFA authentication methods:
* One-Time Password (OTP) – This is an authentication method that requires the user to enter a one-time password. This is usually sent to the user’s mobile device or email address.
* Smartcard – This is an authentication method that requires the user to insert a physical smartcard into a card reader. This is a secure form of authentication that is often used for high-security applications.
Enabling Multi-Factor Authentication
Enabling multi-factor authentication is a simple process. First, you need to create a user account in Office 365. Once the account is set up, you need to go to the Exchange Admin Center and select the “Multi-factor Authentication” tab.
From there, you can select the authentication method that you want to use and configure the settings for each user. You can then assign the authentication method to each user.
Conclusion
Exchange Online’s April 2020 update introduced a number of important changes to authentication. With basic authentication and multi-factor authentication, users can access their Exchange Online accounts with greater security and convenience.
Enabling multi-factor authentication is a simple process and can help protect your data from unauthorized access. We recommend that you enable multi-factor authentication for all of your users to ensure that your data is secure.
References:
Basic Authentication and Exchange Online – April 2020 Update
