Many of our Microsoft 365 customers are still using only single password authentication on the regular user accounts. Though we do not see it often, this is a high risk for unauthorized access to your account. The hacker can then send out malicious emails form your account, as well as have access to files in your cloud storage. We do check the logs on a regular basis and Microsoft shuts down the account pretty quickly when it occurs. But it is not something that you want to happen to you.
We highly recommend that you use multi-factor authentication on any online account. As it is the only way to be sure that you are the only one accessing it.

We will soon be moving everyone to the Microsoft Security defaults, as well as multi-factor authentication. This will also force the use of the Microsoft Authenticator app, which needs to be installed on your cell phone. As well as provide a cell phone number for text messages to receive a code. During this process, we will also be enabling self-service password reset. So users will have the ability to reset their own password if it is forgotten.

Please forward this message to all of your users. Then notify us when you are ready to apply the changes. This will generate a lot of confusion for regular users, but we are here to help. We just want to do it gradually across all of our customers, so everyone is comfortable with the process. We do have a lot of users across all of our customers, so please be patient with the process.

Once the changes are applied, each user will need to log into the Microsoft portal to setup their account. https://portal.office.com Every user must know their existing password to login and complete the steps.

The Microsoft authenticator app needs to be installed on your cell phone, from the play or app store. When you log into the portal from a computer, it will step through the setup and give you a QR code. In the app, you add a new account, then select scan QR code and scan the code on the screen.
The desktop Microsoft Outlook program will only require the multi-factor, every so often after the initial setup.
Email on your cell phone, may require installing the Outlook mobile app, then removing the account from being a regular mail account on your phone.

Just let us know if you have any other questions.

Thanks,

Chris Blanchard
Implied Networks, LLC