Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) coming to the agency on July 19, 2021

If you do not take action on or after July 19th at noon, you will temporarily lose access to your email, Zelly, and OfficeSpace until you do. You cannot set it up before July 19th at noon. Please read this entire post for the necessary details.

In response to the recent phishing attack of April 6th, when a staff account was hijacked to launch attacks against the entire agency and our partners, CPCS is implementing multi-factor security.

Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) launches for CPCS Microsoft Accounts on July 19th, 2021 at 12:00pm. Once MFA is active, you will be unable to access your email, Zelly, OfficeSpace, etc. until you setup MFA.

Accounts affected include:

  1. CPCS Email
  2. CPCS Online Directory – OfficeSpace
  3. Zelly

 What is MFA?

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is a security measure. Many of you are familiar with it from accessing your banking website, Google email, or other secure websites.

MFA requires you to provide a unique code (communicated to you as a text, phone call, or via an authenticator app) after entering your username and password. MFA is used to verify that you are you.

What must you do?

At 12pm on July 19th, MFA will go live. At 12pm on July 19th, you will be automatically logged out of your account. To access your accounts, you must login and setup MFA before you can access the affected accounts. (Instructions attached).

You will be prompted to re-login and setup MFA.  You will need to register only once. You will setup your preferred verification method for being able to access email and other CPCS Microsoft online services. You will not be able to access email, Zelly, or OfficeSpace until you set up MFA and its verification system.

Instructions attached detail the MFA setup process (and the process to change/modify your MFA settings at a later date).

This change will happen on July 19th, 2021 at 12pm.  After that time, when you check your CPCS email, you will be prompted to set up MFA and re-login.  There is no change in how you log into your office computer, either in person or through GoToMyPC.

IMPORTANT: MFA does NOT work with the MaaS360 mail app.  To get mail on your mobile device, download the Outlook app or go to the website mail.office365.com.

For questions, concerns or issues with MFA, please email [email protected]