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The note also said that number matching doesn't support push notifications for Apple Watch or Android wearable devices. "Users can be enabled for Authenticator push notifications either in the Authentication methods policy or the legacy multifactor authentication policy" as long as notifications through the mobile app is enabled." "As relevant services deploy, users worldwide who are enabled for Authenticator push notifications will begin to see number matching in their approval requests," the vendor wrote in an Azure support note this week. Now, number matching is automatically being enabled for all push notifications in Authenticator. In October 2022, Microsoft introduced number matching as an option, as well as other security features like location and application context, in Microsoft Authenticator.
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MFA fatigue also is one of any number of reasons Microsoft is leaning on in an industry push – and that of others, including Google and Apple – to do away with passwords entirely as a verification tool. Redmond saw almost 41,000 Azure Active Directory Protection sessions with multiple failed MFA attempts in August 2022, compared with 32,442 a year earlier, and noted that such attacks had "become more prevalent." It's a threat Microsoft, among other vendors and security pros, has been tracking for a couple of years.
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