Microsoft Disables Basic Authentication for Exchange Online in 2021

Back in 2018, Microsoft announced that it would be shutting down Basic Authentication for Exchange Online in October 2020. In response to the global COVID-19 crisis, this deadline has now been moved to the second half of 2021. An exact date will follow.

The official Microsoft announcement can be found here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/basic-authentication-and-exchange-online-april-2020-update/ba-p/1275508

What is the difference between Basic Authentication and Modern Authentication?

Basic authentication is part of the HTTP protocol. The user of a web browser authenticates himself to a web server or a web application by entering his user name and password and is then authorized for further access.

The big disadvantage of Basic authentication is that the credentials entered are almost not encrypted and are therefore vulnerable to hackers.

Its successor, Modern Authentication, guarantees secure user authentication and authorization through the use of OAuth 2.0 tokens. In addition to being limited, these have limited validity, can only be used for this one application itself and cannot be reused.

What does this mean for you as an itmX customer?

Since our previous interface used “Exchange Web Services” in conjunction with username/password authentication, we have developed a new interface with Release 8.0 FP 1 that supports OAuth 2 and supports multi-factor authentication, among other things

For more information, please contact us: sales@itmx.de