How to bypass initial user authentication requirement for Office 365 accounts

Question

Hi,

I am struggling a lot with freaking Microsoft authentication requirements. A company has 100+ new users, which we migrated to Office 365/Microsoft 365 Business Premium subscription.

Now when we setup user's new Exchange online mail into installable OUTLOOK 365, it annoys me with:

"Help us protect your account" and if I click:

• NEXT --> 2nd step "Keep account secure" --> Microsoft Authenticator
• SKIP (14 days until this is required) --> 2nd step is the same "Keep account secure" --> Microsoft Authenticator

I have DISABLED in Azure AD admin under USERS --> MULTI-FACTOR AUTH STATUS --> DISABLED

????

How can we disable this annoying step?

We just want to manage users centraly, no 2FA, we do not want to involve users into security related issues, we manage all from admin perspective.

Please, help, we're stuck for few days now.

Whatever I click, I get to the same 2nd step (cannot SKIP!):

Answer 1

Hi Andrej Pirman,

Thank you for choosing Microsoft community.

Regarding your concern, try to disable Security defaults to see it works for your scenario. See Disabling security defaults. 

Multi-factor authentication is an important method to keep accounts in secure. See What is: Multifactor Authentication (microsoft.com).

Hope it helps!

Thanks & Stay safe,

Qian

Answer 2

Thank you, Qian! That was exactly what I was looking for. Could not found that tiny little link Manage Security defaults under  Azure Active Directory > Properties. I was looking under Security instead.

And yes, MFA is important, but in case of AD - if you ask me - adds additional security complications to end-user, 99% of users will not engage with it properly, so it calls for tech help in 99% of cases, which is not what AD was meant for. If we'd like user-self-managed security, we'd buy other product.

Answer 3

Thank you for your feedback sir!

You might find the following articles helpful. Just for your reference:

• Let users reset their own passwords - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Docs
• Self-service password reset deep dive - Azure Active Directory | Microsoft Docs
• Change your two-factor verification method and settings - Azure Active Directory | Microsoft Docs (Users may set up 2 verification methods, eg: authenticator app + phone call/text message, in case one of them becomes unavailable)
• Common problems with account two factor authentication - Azure AD | Microsoft Docs

Thanks & Stay safe,

Qian