Change regarding emails: Microsoft severely restricts access through external mail systems 

Microsoft has introduced major changes regarding access via external mail systems and applications. Colleagues and students who use external mail systems other the university mail client, Outlook, with their university email address have recently experienced difficulties concerning sending and receiving emails.

The reason being that Microsoft has disabled basic authentication in the Exchange Online for Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), POP, IMAP, Remote PowerShell, Exchange Web Services (EWS), Offline Address Book (OAB), Outlook Windows and Mac applications. Disabling basic authentication prevents application passwords being used in applications not supporting two-step verification.

Microsoft’s decision nudges its users towards modern systems suitable for two-step verification (e.g. Outlook, Mail App Windows 10, 11). Since the university uses O365 for emailing, the citizens of the university are encouraged to do the same.

For example, those who have been using the Gmail application to check their university emails will not be able to do so from the end of November, because before, they had been redirected via one of the above options. The applications listed above only use basic authentication (username and password), and do not have, for example, additional SMS authentication.

Therefore, in order to access their university emails, we hereby ask our colleagues and the students to switch to Outlook, supported by the university. Every colleague and student can access their emails via web browser, with a suitable login procedure, on the well-known O365 website.

Systems not supported by Microsoft cannot be used after 25 November 2022. Please make sure that you make the necessary changes to your email system until the deadline.

Corvinus IT