Gain more Secure Score points with MFA in Office 365

Low secure score on Office 365?

This doesn’t look very secure… :-s

Some quick points can be gained by enabling multi-factor authentication on your administrator accounts. 50 points, just a few clicks out of reach. Easy.

You should enable MFA for all of your admin accounts because a breach of any of those accounts can lead to a breach of any of your data. We found that you had 1 admins out of 1 that did not have MFA enabled. If you enable MFA for those 1 admin accounts, your score will go up 50 points.

One drawback is that a lot of applications and scripts are not compatible with MFA. Luckily Microsoft has been busy and updated all of their modules.

Windows Azure Active Directory Module

Install the AAD module and type in following command:

Connect-MsolService

In the dialog box, type your Office 365 work or school account user name and password, and then click Sign in.

If necessary you will be prompted to provide additional authentication information, such as a verification code, and then click Sign in.

Why would we need the old one?

Exchange Online Remote PowerShell Module

Install the Exchange Online Remote PowerShell Module and type in following commands:

Import-Module $((Get-ChildItem -Path $($env:LOCALAPPDATA + "\Apps\2.0\") -Filter Microsoft.Exchange.Management.ExoPowershellModule.dll -Recurse).FullName | ?{ $_ -notmatch "_none_" } | select -First 1)
$EXOSession = New-ExoPSSession
Import-PSSession $EXOSession -AllowClobber

This imports the newly installed Exchange Online module. Kudos to Thomas Rayner for figuring this out.

Then it creates a new Powershell session. Importing this session makes all the Exchange Online cmdlets available in your shell.

For more modules also check out Joe Davis’s blog.