Blue Ridge Technology

50% of Phishing Attempts Impersonate Microsoft The old advice is still true: don’t trust anything you see on the internet. Within reason, of course: we work hard to make sure this blog is fact-based and trustworthy. But the big-picture advice is still good advice: how can you know for sure our team wrote this and that the whole post isn’t just the figment of a genAI’s imagination? There are signs, like the way this introduction is going. (Not your standard opening, that’s for sure!) So what’s our point? While you can learn a lot online, and you rely on it for a massive slice of your business, you still can’t take everything you see at face value. A recent report looked at a huge number of phishing attempts — those fraudulent emails that pretend to be from someone else and try to get you to give up sensitive information — and found that one company was the undisputed “leader”: more than ⅓ of phishing emails impersonating a brand chose Microsoft. If your business does business with Micr...

Don’t sleep on this simple, effective security booster Microsoft is making waves once again with some of its customers with a security change. We think it’s a good one — in fact, we think every business should implement this change anywhere they can. Here’s what you need to know, both about the specific change in requirements for some Microsoft users and for why your business should make the switch regardless of whether you’re technically required. What’s Changing: Azure Accounts Must Switch to MFA Microsoft is changing the way Azure users will log into their accounts . Eventually every Azure product will require all accounts to log in using multi-factor authentication, or MFA. MFA is a more secure method of authenticating, or logging into an account. Instead of providing just a username and password combination, logging in using MFA requires an additional factor (method) of authentication (establishing that you are who you claim to be and that you are authorized to use the account you...