Blog

On this episode of First Ring Daily, Brad Sams and Paul Thurrott discuss Microsoft’s upcoming special event on September 21, why AI could be a big part of it, and they also look back at an app that didn’t ship.

After the European Commission started investigating Microsoft’s bundling of Teams with its Microsoft 365 and Office 365 commercial subscriptions last month, Microsoft is ready to address the concerns of EU regulators. This morning, the company announced that will start unbundling Teams from its Microsoft 365/Office 365 commercial suites in the EU and Switzerland on October…

Microsoft has quietly discontinued its once-generous unlimited cloud storage option for the OneDrive for Business service. Indeed, all new commercial customers are now limited to OneDrive for Business (Plan 1), which offers 1 TB of storage for $5 per user per month. Up until now, Microsoft used to offer OneDrive for Business (Plan 2) with…

Microsoft is getting ready to enhance the user experience for Mac devices with its upcoming Platform Single Sign-On (SSO) capabilities. The new MacOS SSO feature will offer a seamless and secure way for macOS users to access their Entra ID accounts across various applications and websites. Microsoft launched its Enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO) plug-in for…

In a leap towards fortifying data security, Microsoft has unveiled several enhancements for Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention. These latest updates boost protection, expand DLP capabilities across platforms, and facilitate seamless day-to-day tasks for administrators. First off, Microsoft has introduced optical character recognition (OCR) support in public preview in Microsoft Teams and Exchange Online. The…

Endpoint security plays a vital role in safeguarding enterprise cybersecurity, particularly in the context of remote work scenarios. As the number of endpoints accessing corporate networks rises with the growth of remote work, the need for robust endpoint security becomes increasingly paramount, enabling a secure environment for users on the move. In this article, I…

Microsoft has announced its plans to enable Exchange Extended Protection by default on Exchange Server later this year. Scheduled to roll out with the 2023 H2 Cumulative Update, the new security feature will help organizations to boost protection against credential theft and man-in-the-middle attacks. Windows Exchange Extended Protection is a security feature that is designed…

Microsoft has started rolling out a set of updates for its new Teams desktop client designed to take employee collaboration in multi-tenant environments up a notch. The focus is on refining chat, calling, meetings, search, and content-sharing experiences to address the needs of today’s diverse workplace dynamics. The new Microsoft Teams desktop app launched in…

For any modern enterprise that uses Microsoft Entra ID (previously Azure Active Directory) to manage user and service access to cloud resources, it’s hard to escape the term Zero Trust (ZT), which implies that your organization must have a layered approach to security. In this article, you’ll learn about five Microsoft Zero Trust tactics for…

Microsoft continues to evolve its offerings with the latest August (2308) service release for Microsoft Intune. A notable highlight is the much-anticipated Remote Help for Android support, a cloud-based solution that promises to enhance the way technical issues are diagnosed and resolved. The Remote help service enables IT admins to remotely diagnose and resolve technical…

Security researchers have exposed a new supply chain attack that targeted entities across Asia, with a particular focus on Hong Kong. An unidentified hacking group, named Carderbee, employed an ingenious tactic — exploiting legitimate software — to infect around 100 computers with the PlugX/Korplug backdoor. According to the Symantec Threat Hunter Team, the hackers hijacked…

Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently made waves with the announcement of a new service called Dedicated Local Zones. This new on-premises cloud offering is a strategic response to the evolving needs of organizations in the public sector and other industries with stringent regulatory and compliance needs. AWS Dedicated Local Zones provide a cloud computing infrastructure…