Blue Ridge Technology

10/25/2026

Never change an employee's payroll bank details using email alone. Call the employee on the number already stored in your HR records or speak to them in person. Have a second person approve the change and record how it was verified.

10/24/2026

Your backup communication channel needs to use a different service from your company email and chat.

If Microsoft 365 goes down, you may lose Outlook and Teams at the same time. If you think an account has been compromised, don't use either one to discuss the response because the attacker may be reading those messages.

Set up a separate way to contact staff during an outage or cyberattack. A managed SMS service or private messaging group can work for a small business.

Check how staff sign in before choosing the service. A backup messaging app that relies on Microsoft for its login may stop working alongside Microsoft 365.

Keep a copy of the staff contact list somewhere you can access without your main work account. Include the details for your IT provider and cyber insurer.

Decide who can send an emergency alert and how employees can confirm that the message is genuine. Then test the channel by sending a message and checking who receives it.

Need help setting this up? Send us a message and we'll work through it with you.

10/24/2026

An unexpected calendar invitation may link to a fake meeting, invoice, document or login page. Check the organizer's full email address and confirm the meeting using contact details you already have before opening any link.

10/23/2026

Signing into Chrome or Edge with a personal account on a work computer can copy business bookmarks, browsing history, open tabs and saved passwords into that account. Use a separate browser profile connected to a company-controlled work account. We can check this for you.

10/22/2026

Could your business still take orders, answer customers and access key systems if its main internet connection failed? A second broadband, 4G or 5G connection can keep essential work running. Test the backup by disconnecting the main service. Need a backup plan? Contact us.

10/20/2026

Microsoft recommends at least two emergency admin accounts for Microsoft Entra, which manages Microsoft 365 sign-ins. Use a sign-in method that doesn't rely on the same phones or apps as your normal admins. Alert every login and test the accounts every 90 days.

10/20/2026

Some Xfinity routers can detect movement through changes in Wi-Fi signals. The feature doesn't use a camera, but it creates information about activity at home. Comcast says it may disclose that information when legally required. Read the privacy terms before using WiFi Motion.

A new feature added to Comcast's newest routers can detect if there is motion inside your home without needing traditional motion sensors.

10/19/2026

Are the days of posting AI content without anyone knowing coming to an end?

Anthropic is adding an invisible watermark to text written by new Claude models.

You won't see the watermark. It is created through patterns in the words Claude chooses, so copying the answer into Word, an email or a website won't remove it. Some editing may leave the mark intact too.

Anthropic plans to provide tools that can estimate whether Claude helped write a piece of text.

Those tools cannot identify the person who used Claude, show what they asked or tell how much of the finished document was written by them.

A document may carry the watermark even if Claude was only used to rewrite part of it.

Businesses can keep using Claude for drafts and editing, but staff should know that its involvement may be detectable. Anything sent to a client or published under the company name still needs to be checked for accuracy.

If your team is already using AI at work and you're not sure what rules you need, let's have a chat.

10/19/2026

Excel Copilot can help turn complex spreadsheets into clearer insights. Ask for trends, outliers, charts, or formula suggestions in plain language. It’s a useful way to save time, but always review AI-generated results before relying on them. Blue Ridge Technology can help your team use Microsoft 365 tools securely and effectively.

​Excel is getting better at finding answers You know the answer is somewhere in the spreadsheet. Finding it means sorting rows, checking for...

10/18/2026

Photos and documents can contain information you don't see when you open them. That may include a photo's GPS location, the document author, comments or tracked changes. Check the metadata before sending files outside your business.