What's happened?
Microsoft are deprecating Basic authentication in Exchange Online which may affect your Microsoft 365 email accounts.
From October 2022, Microsoft will be turning off “Basic Authentication” and Exchange Active Sync (EAS) for users of their Microsoft 365 for Business cloud services (this includes Microsoft 365 desktops accessing email), leaving “Modern Authentication” in its place which is more secure.
Who's affected and what should I do?
For most people/companies, you will not notice any difference on your computers as you are already using more secure authentication technology. Mobile phones are more likely to be affected, in which case the email account may need to be deleted and re-added after Microsoft have made the change.
If, due to previous legacy requirements, you are signed in using “Basic Authentication” you should just need to re-sign in to continue using your Microsoft 365 accounts.
Anyone in the following scenarios will be affected:
Network multifunction devices that connect to your Microsoft email for scan-to-email functionality.
Non-Microsoft Outlook email clients (an email client is the software used to access email) will have to support Exchange Web Services (EWS) to continue to have access to your Microsoft 365 for Business hosted email.
Unfortunately even if your email software does support EWS, a lot of them will have used EAS when the account was added. If it doesn’t auto-switch you will need to remove the account and then re-add it so it uses the newer standards.
For Apple users the following OS versions support the appropriate standards: iOS 11 or later, iPadOS 13.1 or later, and macOS 10.14 or later. However only iOS14 or later and iPadOS14 or later, are expected to auto-switch when the older standards are no longer valid. You may need to re-setup your email account on the phone.
Email on older Android phones will not work with the built in Email client. (Unfortunately it is impossible to give a cut-off date or version numbers as it is dependent on the hardware vendors email client.) If your email client stops working, you can try resetting up the email to see if it supports the newer standards.
If you cannot update your mobile OS/email client to a newer version that supports the appropriate standard you can install Microsoft Outlook for Mobiles from the appropriate app store.
Computers running Microsoft Office older than 2016 or 365 will not be able to connect to Microsoft’s email servers.
Fully patched versions of Office 2013 may continue to work after the cut off date, but there is no support from Microsoft.
Summary - Mobile Phones
If your Microsoft 365 email has stopped working on your phone, try deleting and re-adding your email account on the phone. If this doesn't work, you can either try updating your phone software so it supports the new security, or alternatively, download the Outlook app from your phone's app store, and sign into your email from there.
Here are the links to Outlook for iOS and Android:
Outlook for Apple iOS: https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/microsoft-outlook/id951937596 Outlook for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.microsoft.office.outlook
Summary - Computers
If your Microsoft 365 email has stopped working on your computer, check that your version of Office is 2016 (or later) or Office 365, and upgrade it if necessary.
Please let us know if you need some assistance.
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