We are currently using basic authentication at the University. It has security vulnerabilities that can be exploited by brute force or password spray attacks. Modern authentication is a form of identity management that provides a more secure user authentication between a client and server. To better protect our community, we are enabling modern authentication for all clients on our Microsoft 365 tenant on March 15.
This contemporary authentication mechanism is fully supported on Outlook 2013 and higher as well as other current email clients. Our community is already overwhelmingly using up-to-date email clients, and the change is minimal for them; they will enter their university email address and NetID password rather than their NetID credentials. A small subset of customers has legacy email clients, such as older versions of Outlook, Office for Mac 2011, and Windows Phone 7, that only support basic authentication. To minimize disruptions, ITS will support basic authentication until April 26. Throughout the intervening period, we will focus on upgrading legacy clients. ITS will reach out to areas, provide a list of people who are using older clients, and ask that existing staff help these people upgrade. As we approach April 26, we will contact customers directly. More information about modern authentication is available on the Knowledge Base.