IPhone – Backdoor to Exchange server

emailexchange-activesynciphonemail.app

My company took the Exchange ActiveSync server offline; they want me to use their email client instead of iOS mail (or the Outlook app), in the mistaken belief that this is "more secure."

I thought that when they took this offline, I would also lose connection through OS X Mac Mail (set up in system preferences), because I thought they would use the same protocols. But my phone apps went down this evening and Mac mail is still working.

So this makes me think there could be a backdoor? I already checked and there is no IMAP server. How does Mac Mail connect? Is there a way that I could railroad this vector to get my email back on my phone?

Best Answer

You can get excruciating detail from Mac mail client as follows:

  • open mail
  • select the window menu -> connection doctor
  • tick the log connection detail
  • note the wall clock time and select check again
  • open the log folder and look over the text logs that document exactly what mail servers are being queried, what messages are exchanged between the mac and the iOS device.

If the Mac can still connect, either your exchange setup has a director set up to point to the correct mail server (I believe Microsoft markets that as auto discovery) or it send a reconfiguration message to the mail client to update settings. Safari will also watch for you signing into web mail and offer to set up the mail client.

Best of luck taking those settings to iOS - you might be able to still connect after looking over the Mac connection details.

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