Major update from Message center

Timeline and Scope

As we communicated last year in blog posts and MC286990, we will start to turn off Basic Authentication in our worldwide multi-tenant service on October 1, 2022. To clarify, we will start on October 1; this is not the date we turn it off for everyone. We will randomly select tenants, send 7-day warning Message Center posts (and post Service Health Dashboard notices), then we will turn off Basic Auth in the tenant. We expect to complete this by the end of this year. You should therefore be ready by October 1.

We’re turning off Basic Auth for the following protocols: MAPI, RPC, Offline Address Book (OAB), Exchange Web Services (EWS), POP, IMAP, Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) and Remote PowerShell.

We are not turning off SMTP AUTH. We have turned off SMTP AUTH for millions of tenants not using it, but if SMTP AUTH is enabled in your tenant, it’s because we see usage and so we won’t touch it. We do recommend you disable it at the tenant level and re-enable it only for those user accounts that still need it.

Exceptions and Per-Tenant Timing

There is no way to request an exception after October. Tenant selection is random, and we cannot put your tenant to the back of the queue to give you more time or change your settings on any specific date. If you want Basic Auth to be disabled at a time of your choosing (either now, or as soon as you are ready), use Authentication Policies.

What should I do to prepare for this change?

Any client (user app, script, integration, etc.) using Basic Auth for one of the affected protocols will be unable to connect. The app will receive an HTTP 401 error: bad username or password.

Any app using Modern Auth for these same protocols will be unaffected.

To read more on what can be done to switch apps from Basic to Modern auth please view our main documentation page and our latest blog.

Additional Information
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