At Microsoft, trust is the cornerstone of our business, and we prioritize security and compliance in all our endeavors—but we can't achieve this alone. Our partners are vital in maintaining customer trust and are essential in raising the security standards of our ecosystem.
As we strive for a safer and more secure future together, your continued support and collaboration will assist us in ensuring our products, solutions, and processes remain secure and compliant. Our research shows that the vast majority of cyberattacks can be prevented by basic cybersecurity hygiene practices, starting with multifactor authentication (MFA)—which reduces the risk of compromise by over 99%.
We’re dedicated to providing updates and resources to enhance the partner experience, and that’s why we’re implementing MFA across all Partner Center UX and application programming interfaces (APIs) beginning August 2025.
UX enforcement
Starting on August 30, 2025, partners will be required to use MFA to sign in to the Partner Center dashboard. This means that every time you sign in, you’ll need to provide an additional verification step beyond your username and password.
API enforcement
By September 30, 2025, all APIs will be MFA-enabled and ready for partner testing. You’ll need to integrate MFA into API calls to make sure your organization’s systems can handle the additional authentication step.
Full enforcement of MFA for APIs will begin on April 1, 2026, meaning that any API calls made without MFA will be blocked. Partners will have to update their systems to comply with the new security requirements.
Eventually, all users will need to complete MFA, which involves two or more sign-in methods, when accessing Partner Center. Don’t wait until the enforcement deadlines to set up your MFA preferences—it only takes a few minutes to proactively add or update a verification method and help protect your organization from over 99% of identity-based attacks. This will not only help you avoid service disruptions—it also aligns your systems with Partner Center’s security standards.
Learn more about authentication methods, as well as features and licenses, and be sure to share the details with your technical teams so you can prepare for the updates. We deeply appreciate your help in keeping our partner ecosystem secure and compliant.
Community Manager