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Paul Jarvis2

Unusual activity

I've tried to research this but there is little help on the MS website or in my account that I can see would help me understand what is happening.

About 4 days ago I started to get emails from '*** Email address is removed for privacy ***' telling me that there had been unusual sign in activity on my account. Having first verified that the email was actually from Microsoft and not spam I went into my account and noticed that there had been an automatic sync from the US with the following details;

Protocol: IMAP
IP: 13.101.240.12
Account alias: [my live email address]

Time: 2 hours ago

Approximate location: United States

Type: Unusual activity detected

I couldn't find out what any of this means and when I selected the 'This wasn't me' option I get sent to a webpage which tells me 'This site is temporarily unavailable due to maintenance. Please try again later.'

I subsequently changed my password thinking this would stop the unusual activity but it has happened every day since with the only difference being a slightly different US IP address and the webpage is still undergoing maintenance.

I have 2 step authentication in place but don't understand why this doesn't prevent the unusual activity.

I would be grateful if anyone could tell me whether or not this is just an annoyance that I have to put up with or is there something I need to do to keep my account secure. I'd rather not have to change my password every day if I don't need to!

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Replies (1)

Jennifer McClain

HI. Here is my thread: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/unusual-account-activity-from-ms-ip-addresses/974cc1c1-232f-44a2-b0eb-0f378fd2c801?rtAction=1657978593399

I found this thread. Which provides details as well. Shows all the threads that have been started regarding this issue. He even tried enabling 2F authentication, and still has the issue. He has a support ticket as well. This is clearly a MS deal. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/outlook-mail-account-unusual-activity/6cfb226f-8cd7-41ae-bd0a-a80d100af543

I even have a thread from 2015 with the exact same thing happening. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/all/microsoft-account-unusual-sign-in-activity-ip-is/893dd29e-ff5c-48b5-a7d6-4588d5e83fc6

A user managed to get this response (I guess back when you could call and get a live person. :S >>>>Good day! I understand the situation you are in and let me do my best to help you. Please be informed that IP addresses from Microsoft are generated from when your account is accessed by our system to apply updates to the account. This is the system accessing the account, not any particular individual from Microsoft accessing the account. <<<<

It might also be due to this: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/clients-and-mobile-in-exchange-online/deprecation-of-basic-authentication-exchange-online The article makes it sound like they are getting rid of POP3 and IMAP imports, and are going to force us into downloading their outlook app onto our mobile devices.

Paul Jarvis2

Unusual activity

Replies (1) 

Jennifer McClain

Question Info

Replies (1)