Removal of Basic Authentication

Due to a planned specification change of Microsoft email service, users of Primary Mail Service using email applications need to review and change their email app settings. The due date is October 1st, 2022.

Specifically, for account security enhancement, Basic Authentication support (authentication using only ID and password stored in your application) will be terminated and Modern Authentication (Exchange connection or OAuth 2.0 authentication) will be required to connect to Exchange Online, which provides our Primary Mail Service. This is because Basic Authentication cannot protect accounts by Multi-Factor Authentication, and unauthorized use of accounts through Basic Authentication is occurring frequently worldwide recently.

We had been guiding the use of IMAP/POP/SMTP for mail applications, and these methods usually use Basic Authentication. After the removal of Basic Authentication support from Exchange Online, these applications cannot connect to Exchange Online to read and send email messages. You have to change email application settings to use Modern Authentication (Exchange connection or OAuth 2.0) or migrate to a supported application.

Examples of the environment supporting Modern Authentication

1. Webmail (Outlook on the web)
2. Mail applications with Exchange support (Outlook 2016 or later, Outlook Mobile, Apple standard Mail application, etc)
3. Mail applications with OAuth 2.0 support (Thunderbird)

Please refer to the following information, review the current account settings of your apps, and promptly reconfigure them.

Required action for each application

Deprecation of POP

POP can only retrieve messages from the inbox and cannot review Junk Email folder on the server. Please refrain from using POP, and take this opportunity to switch to Exchange or IMAP+OAuth 2.0.

Difference between Exchange and IMAP

Exchange and IMAP are similar on handling incoming mail. With Exchange and IMAP, you handle messages and folders on the server with the app. Exchange can also handle calendars and address books on the server, allowing you to synchronize information and settings across multiple devices. You can work with other Microsoft apps such as Microsoft Teams to schedule an online meeting.

Outlook app will not support OAuth 2.0, and so requires using Exchange. Since Exchange has both the ability to send and receive emails, Outlook app does not have a separate outgoing SMTP server setting. Therefore, Outlook app cannot use the SMTP server smtp.m.kyushu-u.ac.jp for changing your sending address. If you want to use it, please use application with IMAP+OAuth 2.0 support (such as Thunderbird) or macOS Mail.app (which can use a separate SMTP server even with an Exchange account).

With the transition to Modern Authentication, email account protection with Multi-Factor Authentication, which was not available with basic authentication, will also be available. Please consider enabling the MFA.

Specifying your sender address in Exchange

There are restrictions on specifying your sender address in Exchange Online. You can use the following email addresses (the same applies to WebMail).

• Your Primary Mail Address
• @jimu.kyushu-u.ac.jp addresses (if you have permission)
• Subdomain addresses of Primary Mail Service for Subdomains where your Primary Mail Address is included as a forwarding address

It is expected that you will be able to use the following e-mail addresses as your sender address in Webmail and Outlook for Windows (release date undecided).

• Alias addresses set in the alias address setting page
• Your Student ID-based email address

Frequently Asked Questions

If you are having trouble setting up or have any questions, please see here first.

Applications with OAuth 2.0 support