Alpha it Solutions

Alpha it Solutions Managed IT, cyber security & web design in London & Essex. Also on Telegram: t.me/AlphaITSolutionsUK
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02/10/2026

Is AI dangerous for your business? We checked the seven fears we hear most against the NCSC, Microsoft, the ONS and the High Court.

Some fall apart. Your prompts don't get added to the model for strangers to read. And the NCSC judges fully automated hacking attacks unlikely before 2027.

Two are right.

AI makes things up, and Microsoft says so in its own documentation. In June 2025 the High Court dealt with court papers citing cases that didn't exist. And AI tools can be tricked by instructions hidden in an email or a web page.

The fixes are mostly ordinary IT. Business accounts, MFA, quick updates, and a person checking anything with a figure or a date in it.

https://www.alphaitsolutions.uk/blog/is-ai-dangerous-for-my-business/

Also on Telegram: t.me/AlphaITSolutionsUK

01/10/2026

A supplier payment has gone to the wrong account and you want to know who logged into the accounts mailbox. How far back can you look?

In Microsoft 365 the audit log keeps 180 days. The sign-in log keeps seven days on Business Basic and Standard, and 30 on Business Premium. Upgrading afterwards doesn't bring the older entries back.

Then there's the part most people miss.

Microsoft's own documentation says the audit log isn't switched on by default on its Business plans, Premium included. If nobody turned it on, there's nothing to search.

New guide: how long each log lasts, the one-minute check to see whether yours is recording, what the NCSC says is long enough, and when a SIEM is worth paying for.

https://www.alphaitsolutions.uk/blog/microsoft-365-audit-log-retention/

Also on Telegram: t.me/AlphaITSolutionsUK

30/09/2026

Thinking about Microsoft Copilot for the office? Check your file permissions before you buy the seats.

Microsoft's own documentation says Copilot only shows people what they already have permission to open. That sounds reassuring. It stops sounding reassuring when you remember the HR folder somebody shared with the whole company in 2021.

Nobody went looking for it back then. Copilot doesn't need to look.

New guide: which Microsoft 365 plans can add Copilot, the group to hunt for in SharePoint, why buying one seat first unlocks the tools for the clean-up, and the firewall setting that makes Copilot fail in the office but work at home.

https://www.alphaitsolutions.uk/blog/microsoft-copilot-readiness-small-business/

Also on Telegram: t.me/AlphaITSolutionsUK

29/09/2026

"We use Stripe, so PCI isn't our problem." It still is, just a smaller one.

Stripe's own guide calls it a shared responsibility. Stripe gets assessed every year. You, the business taking the payments, have to attest every year too. For most small shops on Stripe Checkout that's a short questionnaire called SAQ A, not an audit.

The bit people miss is that SAQ A covers your website as well as the payment page. Patches within a month, 12-character passwords, and an external scan every three months by an approved scanning company, even though Stripe handles every card number.

New guide: which questionnaire applies to which checkout, what changed in 2025, and a one-minute test to find out which one your shop uses.

https://www.alphaitsolutions.uk/blog/pci-compliance-stripe-small-business/

Also on Telegram: t.me/AlphaITSolutionsUK

28/09/2026

A fake invoice landed in the inbox, not in Junk. So is Microsoft's spam filter any good?

For bulk spam and known malware, yes. It's on for every Microsoft 365 mailbox and you can't turn it off. What it isn't built for is a link that turns bad after the email arrives, or a polite message pretending to be your managing director.

The part most people miss: Microsoft's own documentation says the Standard and Strict protection policies apply to no one until somebody switches them on. And no names are on the impersonation list by default. So a business on Business Premium can be paying for protection that is sitting there switched off.

New guide: what the built-in filter does, what Defender for Office 365 adds, and a ten-minute check you can run on your own tenant.

https://www.alphaitsolutions.uk/blog/microsoft-365-spam-filter-enough/

Also on Telegram: t.me/AlphaITSolutionsUK

25/09/2026

Could you list every device that connects to your office network right now? Most people answer "not sure", which is honest.

A list of laptops is a start. It isn't a register. The column that usually gets filled in wrong is the operating system: "Windows 11" on every row tells you nothing, because Microsoft supports each yearly version separately. Windows 11 Home and Pro version 24H2 stops getting security fixes on 13 October. That's less than three weeks away.

New guide: the columns worth keeping, the assets small firms leave off (the router, the domain name, the cloud accounts on somebody's personal card), and how to stop the list going stale.

https://www.alphaitsolutions.uk/blog/it-asset-register-small-business/

Also on Telegram: t.me/AlphaITSolutionsUK

24/09/2026

Somebody shares a spreadsheet from OneDrive and sends the link to the accountant. The accountant forwards it. It ends up pasted into a supplier's helpdesk ticket. Nobody did anything odd, and the file now opens for anyone who sees that ticket.

That's an Anyone link. It works without a sign-in, and Microsoft's own admin documentation says you can't track who has opened one. On an untouched Microsoft 365 tenant, every member of staff's personal OneDrive allows them.

New guide: the six settings that fix it, what each one breaks (Request Files is the one that catches people out), and how to find the links that are already out there.

https://www.alphaitsolutions.uk/blog/restrict-external-sharing-onedrive-sharepoint/

Also on Telegram: t.me/AlphaITSolutionsUK

22/09/2026

On 12 January 2027 Microsoft writes its last security update for Windows Server 2016. The morning after, the server boots exactly as it did the day before. Nothing expires, nothing switches itself off, and nobody in the office notices a thing. That is the problem.

There is no paid bridge this time either. Windows 10 had an Extended Security Updates programme with a price and three named years. We read Microsoft's own ESU availability table this morning and Windows Server 2016 is not on it.

New guide: what the date actually changes, why Cyber Essentials will not let you leave it there, the four ways out and what each one costs.

https://www.alphaitsolutions.uk/blog/windows-server-2016-end-of-support/

Also on Telegram: t.me/AlphaITSolutionsUK

21/09/2026

Somebody starts on Monday. The laptop is still in its box, the account gets made at ten past nine, and the new person spends their first morning watching a progress bar and borrowing a colleague's login to read one document.

The thing most people have not noticed: Microsoft removed the fourteen-day grace period for enrolling multi-factor authentication in July 2024. So the second factor now gets set up at the very first sign-in. If nobody has decided which phone or which security key that is, your new starter is stuck on that screen in front of everyone.

Our new guide runs through the IT half of hiring, in the order it actually has to happen. What to order first and why. Why the licence goes on before the first sign-in. Why copying a colleague's access is the fastest way to get somebody working and the main reason nobody can say who can see the payroll folder two years later. What a shared mailbox costs, which is nothing, unless one of three things is true.

It also says plainly which parts are not an IT job at all.

https://www.alphaitsolutions.uk/blog/new-starter-it-setup-checklist/

Also on Telegram: t.me/AlphaITSolutionsUK

18/09/2026

"It's all in the cloud, so it's backed up." Those are two different sentences and the gap between them is where people lose a year of invoices.

Here is the number almost nobody knows. When somebody empties their Deleted Items, that mail goes to a hidden folder and Microsoft keeps it for fourteen days. Not thirty, not ninety. Fourteen, by default, and thirty is the absolute maximum the platform will hold it for.

Delete a leaver's account to save the licence fee and a different clock starts on their OneDrive. Their manager gets warned, if a manager was ever set in your directory. If that field is empty, nobody is told anything.

We have written up what Microsoft actually keeps, for how long, what their own paid backup product covers, and the five ways small businesses genuinely lose this data. No product names, no scare figures, just the retention windows and what to check in your own tenant this week.

https://www.alphaitsolutions.uk/blog/microsoft-365-backup-small-business/

Also on Telegram: t.me/AlphaITSolutionsUK

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