Passwordless authentication in Office 365

No one likes to remember passwords or type in the same password over and over again? Now we have a solution for this.

A few month’s ago Microsoft released Passwordless Authentication for public preview.

If you already have MFA enabled and Microsoft Authenticator app installed on your mobile phone, then you are
more than ready to make the next step.

Passwordless authentication works as follows:

1. You enter your Office 365 username
2. Instead of entering a password, the Office 365 logon screen shows you a number.
3. You receive a prompt on your authenticator app (which you should already have installed for MFA, right?)
4. The authenticator app gives you a choice of 3 numbers, you choose the same one that is shown on the logon screen.
5. Authenticator app prompts you for Face ID, Touch ID,
6. Boom! You’re in. No passwords.

Configuration

Below I will show you have to get this set up in your Office 365 tenant.

Disclaimer: This feature is still in preview, this means Microsoft can make changes to it or withdraw it without notice.

First of all, follow this Microsoft article to enable it at the tenant level. Once this is done users need to follow the steps below to set it up in the Authenticator app

1. Open Microsoft Authenticator app on your phone and locate your Office 365 account
   
2. Click on dropdown menu in the upper-right corner and choose “Enable phone sign-in”
3. 
4. On the next screen click “Continue”
   
5. You will be asked to register your device in AzureAD by typing in your password and confirming it with in-app approval.
   
6. Once confirmed, everything is set up! Now let’s take a look at end user experience. Open a new tab in incognito mode (to avoid using cookies from previous sessions) and go to office.com
   
7. Type in your username and click Next
   
8. You will see the number that needs to be clicked on your smartphone.
   
9. Check your Microsoft Authenticator notifications. Choose the same number and click Approve.
   
10. That’s it! Just don’t forget your password – you may still need it at some point 🙂

At Meritum Cloud we think Passwordless Authentication is pretty cool and I am sure it will become the new norm sooner rather than later.