And we’re enabling users who are authenticated from a federated on-premises directory to be enabled for multi-factor authentication. We’re adding App Passwords for users so they can authenticate from Office desktop applications as these are not yet updated to enable multi-factor authentication. We’re also enhancing the capabilities that have been available since June.

Multi-factor authentication has been available for Office 365 administrative roles since June 2013, and today we’re extending this capability to any Office 365 user. Only after this second authentication factor has been satisfied can a user sign in. With Multi-Factor Authentication for Office 365, users are required to acknowledge a phone call, text message, or an app notification on their smartphone after correctly entering their password. Multi-factor authentication increases the security of user logins for cloud services above and beyond just a password. This will allow organizations with these subscriptions to enable multi-factor authentication for their Office 365 users without requiring any additional purchase or subscription. Today we’re adding Multi-Factor Authentication for Office 365 to Office 365 Midsize Business, Enterprise plans, Academic plans, Nonprofit plans, and standalone Office 365 plans, including Exchange Online and SharePoint Online.

Paul Andrew is a technical product manager on the Office 365 team working on identity. The Office 2013 Windows client update that is mentioned in this post has updated information.

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