Early Warning: Info on Microsoft Exchange "Modern Authentication" and G Suite's Removal of "Less Secure Apps" support

Update: Due to Covid-19 Both Microsoft and Google have postponed the changes until further notice. Boyum still plan to support but with less urgency.

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This article affects you if you use B1 Print and Delivery together with Microsoft Exchange via Office 365 or in general use G Suite.

The Change that you need to be aware of

In B1 Print and Delivery + our Server Components, we allow the user to send out emails via Microsoft Exchange (using username/password option) and/or G Suite (using the "Less secure apps" option).

These 2 options are however going aways as both Google and Microsoft are moving to the more modern oAuth only Authentications methods

• Microsoft has announced that after October 13th, 2020 they will no longer support Microsoft Exchange via simple username/password authentication on Office 365 [More info here]
• Google has announced that after June 15th, 2020 new accounts are not allowed to use "Less Secure Apps" option and existing accounts will no longer be supported after February 15th, 2021 [More info here]

What will Boyum Do to support this change?

Boyum intends to support these new systems prior to it going live in October 2020 / February 2021, but as we are in the initial investigation phase on how to support it we can not tell you yet exactly when it will be supported. Please follow this article and our What's new videos to stay up to date.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Does this mean these features will go away?
A: No, it "just" there will be a new way to access them

Q: Why are you making this change (what you already works as intended)?
A: It is not that we have made this decision; It is decided by Microsoft / Google and we can only follow suit. 

Q: Why is Microsoft/Google making this change (is the current method insecure)?
A: oAuth is the new industry standard to make authentication as it binds itself to the specific machine and has an automated expiry date. The old method is as such not less secure as long as bad guys do not get hold of your credentials. The insecure part comes if they (bad guys) do get hold of your data as they can then use them without you knowing about it. This is less likely with modern authentication.

Q: Will the new system be as easy to set up as the old?
A: This is unknown, but based on how other oAuth systems work it might be a more tricky thing to set up. While oAuth itself is fairly simple to implement in an end-user application (it will simply show a website popup to the user to enter the credentials), it is more tricky in an automated system like B1 UP Server Component where there is no user interaction. This will properly mean that there needs to be a new button in the server component where you need to start the authentication before the automated system can function.
In general, our goal is to make it as easy as possible but you should anticipate it being a bit more tricky to use (more secure solutions usually are :-/ )

Q: In what version do you plan to support this?
A: MS Exchange Modern Authentication was supported from B1UP 2020.05 release. We have not yet determined which version will be the first to support G Suite, but we will let you know as soon as we know.

Q: You mention G Suite. What about personal Gmail?
A: Google is very vague if this also affects Personal Gmail accounts or not. In any case, since B1UP is business Software we only expect to support G Suite accounts with our solution. 

Q: Are there plans to support this on the older versions?
A: No, it is only planned on 2020.x releases

Q: I have further questions. Where can I ask them?
A: Please send your questions to support@boyum-it.com