NetAdmins

NetAdmins NetAdmins Inc. provides enterprise-class IT services & tech support to New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI small and mid-sized businesses.

We manage every part of your IT, so you can focus on what you do best, running your business.

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

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

Until recently, I'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 I 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 I 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.

I 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?

08/31/2026

It might sound like good news when cybercriminals turn on each other.

But it doesn’t make things safer.

Some are offering to “help” victims caught in the middle, which sounds tempting until you think about it properly…

One reason modern cyberattacks are becoming so difficult to spot is that many of them no longer rely on breaking into sy...
08/30/2026

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...
08/29/2026

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?

08/28/2026

Too many tabs, apps, and distractions? Windows 11 has a simple way to separate your work…

This is one of the clearest signs that AI is becoming part of mainstream business infrastructure…Companies are now payin...
08/26/2026

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 to me.

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.

I think 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?

08/03/2026

Most people install updates without a second thought.

And that’s what attackers rely on.

There’s a new scam that looks so convincing, even experienced users are getting caught out.

Once you click, it’s already too late…

For years, the advice has been simple: “Be careful what you click on in Google.”Now we might need to start saying the sa...
08/02/2026

For years, the advice has been simple: “Be careful what you click on in Google.”

Now we might need to start saying the same thing about AI 🤖

Microsoft has warned that cybercriminals are finding ways to manipulate AI tools into recommending fake software downloads.

And honestly, it makes sense when you think about how people use the internet now.

A lot of us don’t search the way we used to anymore 🔦

Instead of typing something into Google and scrolling through websites, people are asking AI questions directly…

“What’s the best tool for checking PC temperatures?”�
“Where can I download this app?”�
“What software should I use for…?”

The problem is that attackers are adapting to that behavior.

Researchers found criminals creating fake websites pretending to be popular tools.

Somehow, they’re managing to get these malicious sites recommended by AI systems.

Instead of tricking search engines, they’re now trying to trick AI.

And if someone trusts the recommendation and downloads the file, malware gets installed on the device.

In some cases, that malware gives the attacker remote access to the computer. They can then explore the network and steal data.

They may even install something called a “crypto jacker”.

That’s software which uses your computer’s power to mine cryptocurrency for the attacker.

Your machine slows to a crawl while somebody else profits from your electricity bill 💸

The bigger point here is that cybercriminals follow behavior.

If people move from search engines to AI, attackers move there too.

That means we need to treat AI recommendations with the same level of caution we’d use for search results or emails ⚠️

Helpful doesn’t always mean safe.

AI is an incredible tool, but it doesn’t “fact check” the internet in the way many people assume.

It can still surface bad information, fake sites, or manipulated recommendations.

So, if you’re downloading software, especially business software, you should still check the source properly before clicking install.

💭 Have you started using AI instead of Google for searches yet?

The FBI has issued a warning about a new type of phishing attack targeting Microsoft 365 users 😰And this one is a little...
08/01/2026

The FBI has issued a warning about a new type of phishing attack targeting Microsoft 365 users 😰

And this one is a little different…

Normally with phishing, the attacker tries to steal your password.

This time, they’re trying to steal something called an “OAuth token”.

A what?!

An OAuth token is like a temporary digital pass that proves you’ve already logged in successfully.

It’s what keeps you signed into apps like Outlook, Teams, and OneDrive without needing to enter your password every few minutes.

If an attacker steals that pass, they can potentially access those services as if they were you 🥸

The phishing emails themselves are becoming incredibly convincing, thanks to AI.

They can look like document shares, meeting invites, or account notifications. And they often lead to real Microsoft login pages.

So, when someone approves the request, it feels legitimate.

That’s the trap 🪤 The attacker is effectively getting you to approve access on their behalf.

This is why cybersecurity is changing so much right now.

For years, businesses focused heavily on passwords and antivirus software, and those are still important.

But attackers are increasingly finding ways to work around them by targeting normal human behavior instead.

A rushed click, an approval without thinking, a moment of distraction during a busy day. That’s often all they need.

Fortunately, there are protections you can put in place behind the scenes, especially around how Microsoft 365 handles authentication requests.

And remember, if you receive an unexpected login request, verification prompt, or email asking you to approve access to something, slow down and think before clicking anything 🔎

Even if it looks genuine.

👉 Have you noticed that phishing emails are harder to spot lately?

Address

90 Paradise Row
Saint John, NB
E2K4J5

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 5pm
Tuesday 8am - 5pm
Wednesday 8am - 5pm
Thursday 8am - 5pm
Friday 8am - 5pm

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when NetAdmins posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to NetAdmins:

Shortcuts

Share

Category