CISA.MS.AAD.3.5: The authentication methods SMS, Voice Call, and Email One-Time Passcode (OTP) SHALL be disabled.
| ID | CISA.MS.AAD.3.5 |
| Severity | High |
| Suite | CISA SCuBA baselines |
| Product | Entra ID |
| Feature | Authentication methods |
| Security area | Authentication |
| Resource type | Tenant |
| User impact of fixing | Medium |
| Effort to fix | Medium |
| Benchmark | CISA SCuBA Secure Configuration Baselines for Microsoft 365 ScubaGear main, 2026-10-11, MS.AAD.3.5 (SHALL) |
| Framework controls | cisa-scuba:MS.AAD.3.5nist-800-53-r5:CM-7b Least Functionalitynist-800-53-r5:IA-5c Authenticator Management |
| MITRE ATT&CK | T1566.002, T1621, T1111 |
| Reads from | Microsoft Graph |
| Licence needed | AAD_PREMIUM |
What this checks and how to fix it
Section titled “What this checks and how to fix it”The authentication methods SMS, Voice Call, and Email One-Time Passcode (OTP) SHALL be disabled.
Rationale: SMS, voice call, and email OTP are the weakest authenticators. This policy forces users to use stronger MFA methods.
Remediation action:
Section titled “Remediation action:”If phishing-resistant MFA has not been deployed yet and Microsoft Authenticator is in use, configure Authenticator to display context information to users when they log in.
- In Entra ID, click Security > Authentication methods
- Click on the SMS, Voice Call, and Email OTP authentication methods and disable each of them. Their statuses should be Enabled > No on the Authentication methods > Policies page.
Related links
Section titled “Related links”- Entra admin portal - Authentication methods
- CISA Strong Authentication & Secure Registration - MS.AAD.3.5v1
- CISA ScubaGear Rego Reference
Mito check, based on CISA ScubaGear. Author: soulemike; contributors: HenrikPiecha. Open-source licences.
Open-source licences. CIS Benchmark material © Center for Internet Security, Inc.; CISA SCuBA baselines are public domain (CC0).
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