How to enable Azure Active Directory security defaults in Office 365

Prerequisites

• Applies to: Administrator
• Difficulty: Moderate
• Time Needed: Approximately 30 minutes
• Tools Needed: Office 365® Global Administrator access

For more information about prerequisite terminology, see Cloud Office support terminology.

Administrators looking for a simple solution to secure their Office 365 tenant have the option of turning on security defaults for their organization. Security defaults make the following changes to your organization’s tenant:

• Unifies the Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) registration experience for all users.
• Enforces MFA for users and administrators.
• Blocks legacy authentication methods such as Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP), Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), and Post Office Protocol (POP3).
• Blocks requests made by clients that don’t use modern authentication.
• Requires extra authentication when accessing highly privileged areas such as the Office 365 Admin Center and Azure® Portal.
• Requires the Microsoft® Authenticator app for MFA.

This article lists the steps to enable Azure Active Directory® security defaults.

Warning: Security defaults only support MFA by using the Microsoft Authenticator app with the notification method. If any users in your organization don’t have a mobile device or are unable to use the Microsoft Authenticator app, don’t enable this feature.

Enable security defaults

1. Log in to your Office 365 Control Panel.

2. From the left menu, select Office 365 Admin Center.

3. From the left menu, select Azure Active Directory under Admin centers.

   Note: If you don’t see the Admin centers section, you might need to select Show all….

4. Select Azure Active Directory from the left menu, then Properties.

5. Select Yes, and then Save.

Additional resources

To learn more about security defaults, see “What are security defaults?".

To learn more about setting up MFA with a mobile device, see Set up two-factor sign-in on your phone.