Cannot access account with authenticator app

Question

I reset my phone and lost access to my Microsoft Authenticator app. Now, when I try to sign in, it asks me to authenticate using the app, but I don’t have a backup

Answer 1

@danielsmit

Thank you for posting this in Microsoft Q&A.

As I understand you are unable to access Azure resources due to MFA. You have lost your phone to approve MFA request.

In this situation you have 2 ways to solve this issue.

• If you have another Global admin of your tenant
• If you are the only Global admin of your tenant

If you have another Global admin of your tenant, you can ask them to make change in Entra ID for your account so that you can re-register for MFA in authenticator app. To perform this, you can ask another Global admin to follow below steps,

• Admin has to login to Azure portal and access Azure active directory.
• Once done they have to go to users blade on the left.
• Click on the user account which has been locked out.
• Click on Authentication methods and click on “Require re-register multifactor authentication”.
• Now when you try to login to Azure services it will prompt you to register for MFA again.

 

If you are the only global admin on the account and are blocked entirely, you can reach out to our support team. You can look into below article to get support numbers depending on your country.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/global-customer-service-phone-numbers-c0389ade-5640-e588-8b0e-28de8afeb3f2

Create a ticket with Microsoft support team. Give them the tenant ID which is locked out in your description. Tell them that no admin account has access anymore and your partners also have no access anymore.

Once you create a ticket with support team you will have to work with our data protection team. You will have to first prove your identity against your tenant for security purpose. Post that this team will help you with help you in getting access to your tenant or unlock your account depending on your scenario.

Also, for the future, you can create an emergency access account (break glass) in Azure AD. This account will help prevent being accidentally locked out of your Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) organization because you can't sign in for any reason.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/roles/security-emergency-access

 

Let me know if you have any further questions.

Please "Accept the answer" if the information helped you. This will help us and others in the community as well.

 

Answer 2

Hi Daniel

It happened to me similarly, and what I did was report it directly to the 365 admin; either way, here are 3 steps that might be useful; I hope this information is helpful to you:

1.-Account Recovery: You can try to recover your account here: https://account.live.com/acsr. It’ll ask you to verify your identity using other methods, like an email or phone number linked to your account.

2.-Alternative Authentication Methods: If you set up any backup options (like a backup email or phone number), you can use those when it asks you to authenticate.

3.-Microsoft Support: If none of that works, you can reach out to Microsoft support. They can help you recover your account, though it might take a bit of time and they may ask for some identity verification.