Elite Technology Solutions Group

Elite Technology Solutions Group Managed IT solutions you can count on, service you can trust.

When was the last time you looked at the browser extensions installed on your computer?We're guessing the answer is… nev...
09/03/2026

When was the last time you looked at the browser extensions installed on your computer?

We're guessing the answer is… never 🤷

Once an extension is installed and working, it disappears into the background. You stop thinking about it.

That’s why this latest announcement from Microsoft caught our attention 👀

It has removed 119 malicious extensions from the Edge Add-ons store after discovering they had been downloaded around 2.6 million times.

These were tools people install every day, including ad blockers, PDF tools, VPNs, translators and video downloaders.

On the surface, they appeared perfectly legitimate.

The malicious behavior didn’t start right away.

In many cases, the extensions waited days before doing anything harmful, so they were much harder to detect.

From there, some were able to steal information stored in the browser, redirect people to malicious websites, or download additional software onto the device.

Cyberattacks are changing 😬

Years ago, we thought about security in terms of downloading the wrong file or opening the wrong email attachment.

Today, attackers are much happier to hide inside software that people already trust.

A browser extension feels harmless because it’s designed to make life easier.

It might block adverts, help you edit PDFs or translate web pages, so it doesn’t raise suspicion.

Now, most browser extensions are perfectly safe and genuinely useful. But they’re worth treating like any other software you install.

If you no longer use one, remove it.

If you don’t recognize one, find out what it does.

And if an extension asks for permissions that seem excessive, ask why it needs that level of access.

One of the biggest lessons in cybersecurity is that convenience and trust are closely linked.

The more useful something appears to be, the less likely we are to question it.

That’s what attackers are counting on 😱

💭 How many browser extensions do you think are installed on your computer right now… and could you name them all?

If your team answers the same questions all day long, you might wonder if every one of those calls needs a person.AI voi...
09/02/2026

If your team answers the same questions all day long, you might wonder if every one of those calls needs a person.

AI voice assistants are getting better at handling simple conversations and helping callers get what they need faster.

The key is knowing which calls are worth automating and which should always stay with a person…

Learn more: https://www.eliteservicesmo.com/post/should-your-business-use-an-ai-voice-assistant

One of the questions we hear more often is: “Can I trust AI to tell me whether something is a scam?” 🤔Until recently, we...
09/01/2026

One of the questions we hear more often is: “Can I trust AI to tell me whether something is a scam?” 🤔

Until recently, we’d have been cautious with that.

AI is brilliant at explaining things, but when it comes to cybersecurity, being almost right isn’t good enough.

That’s why we think this latest development is interesting.

Norton has integrated its Genie scam detection tool into both Claude and ChatGPT.

It means people can ask an AI assistant to help assess whether an email, text message, website or online offer looks suspicious 👀

The AI isn’t giving its own opinion, it’s drawing on Norton’s scam detection technology, which looks for things like impersonation, pressure tactics, suspicious links, and requests for sensitive information.

It’s combining the conversational side of AI with technology that’s specifically designed to identify scams 🔎

But we don’t think people should stop thinking for themselves.

If an email claims your bank account is about to be closed or a supplier suddenly wants you to change their payment details, you should still check independently.

Tools like this could become useful as a second opinion though.

Online scams are becoming much harder to spot than they were a few years ago.

Criminals are using AI to write more convincing emails, create more believable websites, and remove the spelling mistakes that used to give them away 🤖

Anything that helps people pause and sense-check what they’re looking at must be a positive step.

We can also see this becoming part of everyday working life.

Instead of forwarding a suspicious email to a colleague and asking, “Does this look right to you?”, people may increasingly ask an AI assistant first.

It should never replace security awareness or good internal processes.

But it could help you make better decisions before you click a link or reply to a message.

👉 Would you trust an AI assistant to help you decide whether something was a scam, or would you still rather rely on your own judgment?

Should you ban AI on Fridays?By the end of the week, people are often tired and more likely to rush through tasks.When u...
08/31/2026

Should you ban AI on Fridays?

By the end of the week, people are often tired and more likely to rush through tasks.

When using AI tools like Microsoft Copilot, this can lead to content being sent out without proper review.

While the output may look polished, small issues around tone or appropriateness can easily slip through when attention is low.

The real risk isn’t the technology itself, but how it’s used.

Over time, relying too heavily on AI can reduce critical thinking and make teams less likely to question what’s produced.

Rather than avoiding AI, businesses should build simple habits around reviewing its output.

Especially for anything customer-facing, to make sure it’s accurate, appropriate, and aligned with how they want to communicate.

If you have published the blog on this subject: Choose the Learn more button. Point it at your blog article.

You don’t notice manual processes becoming a problem straight away.A few extra steps here. Information copied between sy...
08/28/2026

You don’t notice manual processes becoming a problem straight away.

A few extra steps here. Information copied between systems there. Someone chasing updates because nothing connects properly.

But gradually, those small delays start slowing everything down…

At first, you might think the most surprising thing about this ransomware research is the amount of money involved 🤑But ...
08/27/2026

At first, you might think the most surprising thing about this ransomware research is the amount of money involved 🤑

But we think it’s how normal some of the conversations sounded…

Researchers analyzed hundreds of negotiations between ransomware gangs and the businesses they attacked.

In many cases the criminals behaved less like stereotypical hackers and more like aggressive salespeople.

They offered discounts for quick responses.

They split their demands into separate “services”.

Some even offered what they described as security reports or audits afterwards 🤯

As bizarre as that sounds, it tells you something important about how organized ransomware has become.

This is no longer somebody randomly locking files and demanding money.

These groups understand negotiation, pressure, and human behavior extremely well.

In many attacks, the first demand isn’t even the amount the criminals expect to receive.

The research found businesses often negotiated the price down significantly, sometimes by huge amounts 💰

The attackers also leaned heavily on urgency ⏰

If the victim delayed, the price might increase.

If they responded quickly, a discount appeared.

Threats to leak stolen data were common too, along with warnings about contacting the press or exposing compliance failures.

The goal is to make people panic and react emotionally rather than think clearly.

In many cases, data is stolen first and then used as leverage during the negotiation.

And even if criminals promise to delete that information after payment, there’s no reliable way to verify they will.

You’re relying entirely on trust in a criminal organization. Which obviously isn’t a great position to be in 😬

When an attack happens, businesses suddenly face operational disruption, customer concerns, legal questions, financial pressure, and difficult decisions all at the same time.

You must be prepared.

Having strong backups is vital, but so is knowing who would lead the response, how communication would work, and what steps would happen first if systems suddenly became unavailable.

👉 If your systems went offline tomorrow morning, do you think your business would know what to do first?

Some businesses assume IT support is mainly about fixing problems when something breaks.But good support should also red...
08/25/2026

Some businesses assume IT support is mainly about fixing problems when something breaks.

But good support should also reduce the chances of those problems happening in the first place.

There’s an important difference between watching for issues and actively maintaining systems. Are you only getting half of the picture…?

One reason modern cyberattacks are becoming so difficult to spot is that many of them no longer rely on breaking into sy...
08/24/2026

One reason modern cyberattacks are becoming so difficult to spot is that many of them no longer rely on breaking into systems in the traditional sense 🦹

Instead, attackers are learning how to manipulate normal business processes and get people to unknowingly help them.

Microsoft has warned about a group called Storm-2949 doing exactly that through the password reset process used in Microsoft accounts.

The attack starts with information the criminals have already gathered.

Usually things like a person’s email address and phone number.

They then trigger a password reset request on the victim’s account and, at the same time, place a phone call pretending to be IT support 📞

The victim receives a genuine Microsoft authentication prompt on their device while the caller calmly explains that they need to approve it to “fix” the issue.

That’s what makes this attack convincing.

The notification is real. The system is real.

The attacker is abusing a legitimate process and persuading the person to cooperate.

Once the request is approved, the criminals can reset the password, lock the real user out of the account, and begin accessing company information.

In some reported cases, attackers downloaded huge amounts of data from systems like OneDrive because different employees had access to different folders and shared files 🗂️

MFA stands for Multi-Factor Authentication. It’s the extra security step where you approve a login using your phone, an app, or a code.

It’s still one of the best protections available, but attacks like this show that security tools are only effective if people understand what they’re approving.

Cybersecurity increasingly revolves around trust and human behavior rather than purely technical weaknesses.

People are naturally inclined to cooperate when someone sounds professional, calm, and helpful on the phone.

Especially if a real security prompt appears at the same time ‼️

That’s why you need clear internal processes around password resets, account changes, and unexpected authentication requests.

🤔 If you received a real authentication request while speaking to someone claiming to be support, do you think you’d feel confident spotting whether it was genuine or not?

One of the things businesses often underestimate about downtime is how quickly it spreads beyond “the IT issue”.A system...
08/21/2026

One of the things businesses often underestimate about downtime is how quickly it spreads beyond “the IT issue”.

A system goes offline and, within minutes, people can’t access information 😱

Customers start noticing problems, communication slows down, and normal workarounds suddenly become much more difficult than anyone expected.

New research suggests the financial impact of unplanned downtime is growing at a huge rate, with major organizations collectively losing hundreds of billions every year.

It can mean staff sitting idle because systems aren’t available.

Delays to customer service.

Disrupted operations.

Marketing campaigns pausing unexpectedly.

In some situations, it can mean reputational damage that lasts much longer than the outage itself.

The interesting part of the research wasn’t really the size of the numbers, though.

It was the fact that many businesses still struggle to identify what’s causing the disruption in the first place 😵💫

In a growing number of cases, security incidents are initially mistaken for ordinary technical faults.

Something seems slow, unstable, or unavailable, so teams treat it as a normal IT problem while an attacker is still actively operating in the background.

That delay can make the eventual impact much worse 😰

At the same time, businesses are becoming more dependent on connected systems, cloud services, and digital workflows than ever before.

When almost every part of the company relies on technology in some way, even relatively short disruptions can create operational problems quickly.

That’s why resilience has become such an important conversation.

Not in the sense of trying to guarantee that nothing will ever go wrong, because that’s unrealistic.

Systems fail, updates cause problems, cyberattacks happen, and unexpected outages will always exist to some degree.

But it is important that you think through what happens next.

Who needs to know first?

How do teams continue operating?

Which systems are critical?

What can still function manually if necessary?

Those conversations are easier to have calmly before a problem happens than during the middle of one.

👉 If a major system outage happened tomorrow morning, would your business have a clear plan for keeping things moving?

This is one of the clearest signs that AI is becoming part of mainstream business infrastructure…Companies are now payin...
08/20/2026

This is one of the clearest signs that AI is becoming part of mainstream business infrastructure…

Companies are now paying to reserve guaranteed AI capacity in advance.

OpenAI launched an enterprise plan that allows large organizations to lock in long-term access to its computing power 🔐

Specifically, so their AI systems keep running reliably, even during periods of very high demand.

That might sound quite technical, but the idea behind it is simple.

AI tools like ChatGPT rely on enormous amounts of computing power sitting inside data centers.

Every prompt, response, automation, and AI-driven workflow uses a small piece of that infrastructure.

As more businesses adopt AI, demand for that computing power keeps increasing 😰

The result is that AI availability is starting to matter in the same way internet uptime or cloud reliability matters.

A couple of years ago, most businesses treated AI as something experimental 🧫

People used it occasionally to write content, summarize notes, or brainstorm ideas.

Now some organizations are building AI directly into customer service, reporting, operations, workflows, and internal automation.

In those environments, even short outages become much more significant.

That’s why this announcement feels important.

It shows AI is moving towards being treated more like core infrastructure.

Businesses are no longer asking: “Can AI help us?”

They’re starting to ask: “What happens if our AI systems become unavailable?”

What’s also interesting is how much infrastructure sits behind all this.

OpenAI is continuing to build huge new data center capacity to support growing demand, because the scale of AI usage now is difficult to comprehend.

And demand is still accelerating.

This is another reminder that AI adoption is moving much faster than many people expected.

💬 Do you think businesses are becoming too dependent on AI, or are we only just scratching the surface of what it’ll eventually become?

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