Turn off Basic authentication in Exchange Online and handeling exceptions.

Question

Hello All,

Greetings!

Please help me with the process to turn off Basic authentication in Exchange Online and handling exceptions.

Product: Exchange Online Office 365
Requirement: 1. Removing basic authentication from Exchange Online.
2. Creating an exception for any email application relay to send out an external email.

Please provide me Powershell commands or GUI process whichever is feasible.

Thank you in advance :)

Answer 1

Hi @GurudasSatardekar

Thank you for asking this question on the **Microsoft Q&A Platform. **

For both cases, you can do it via Conditional Access Policy, Create a policy like this:

1. Create a Conditional Access Policy
   
2. Select All Users
   
3. In Exclude, add the users that you allow to use Basic Auth. in my case I use a Security Group.
   
4. Select de Cloud App
   
5. Select the Condition
   
6. Block the access
   

This is Literally the setting where I have to do what you require,

Hope this helps,
Carlos Solís Salazar

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Answer 2

Hi, note that Basic Authentication is being turned off in Exchange Online this October.
I would highly recommend you do not create exceptions at this point and rather you work quickly to get your clients to using Modern Auth
You can do nothing, and it will be off in October, or turn it off now, and create exceptions with an auth policy:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/clients-and-mobile-in-exchange-online/disable-basic-authentication-in-exchange-online
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/clients-and-mobile-in-exchange-online/disable-basic-authentication-in-exchange-online#create-and-apply-authentication-policies

More info:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/clients-and-mobile-in-exchange-online/deprecation-of-basic-authentication-exchange-online

There is a temporary opt-out process:
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/basic-authentication-and-exchange-online-september-2021-update/ba-p/2772210