Mandate MFA for Accessing Microsoft 365 Admin Center

Starting in 2024, Microsoft will require mandatory multifactor authentication (MFA) for all Azure sign-in attempts, as research indicates that MFA can prevent over 99.2% of account compromise attacks. The enforcement will occur in two phases: the first phase in the latter half of 2024 will apply to the Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center, and Microsoft Intune admin center, while the second phase, beginning in early 2025, will extend to the Azure CLI, Azure PowerShell, and other tools. Notifications regarding these changes will be communicated to Global Administrators via email, service health notifications, portal notifications, and the Microsoft 365 message center. Additionally, support for external MFA solutions is currently in preview, with recommendations for organizations to migrate user-based service accounts to workload identities by updating scripts and automation processes. Starting February 3, 2025, MFA will also become mandatory for all Microsoft 365 admin center users, with global admins required to set up MFA and verify methods, although they can apply to postpone enforcement if necessary.