Teams updates to watch: malicious link warnings, blocked risky files, and a new private backroom chat

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Microsoft has announced three Teams updates the past months. Two that strengthen security and one that will improve how organizers coordinate events: Malicious URL Protection, Weaponizable file type protection and Private chat for organizers, co‑organizers, and presenters. Please note that timelines can shift, so treat the dates as guidance rather than guarantees. Malicious URL Protection (Roadmap ID 499893 ) Microsoft has announced link‑scanning in Teams chats and channels that warns senders and recipients about unsafe URLs. The feature reached general availability rollout by the end of November 2025, while the separate change to make it ON by default, originally planned as part of that release, has been postponed to early 2026.  If you don't want to wait for it to be on by default, or feel the need to configure it, you can do so in the Teams admins center: "Teams admin center → Messaging settings → Scan messages for unsafe URLs”. Or you can mange the configuration with Power...

An alternative to mess up your HD.

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I am a ”Windows guy”, and most of my work is related to Windows installations (small and big, pc’s and servers). But from time to time, I see the benefit of not only knowing my way around in a Linux environment. I also find it handy to have an installation ready at hand.

When a Pc fails to load (usually due to HD failure of some sort) I have used one out of two approaches to salvage data for myself or customers. One way is to use the windows installation media and try to repair the installation. This usually works, but not always. When a repair fails, I have relied on so called “live-CD” installations to access the computers content. But the problem I have with these CD’s is that I can’t write configuration changes to the CD if I want to make changes. In addition to salvage stuff through the use of Ubuntu, I like to have an alternate OS to boot into. Some tools don’t work in Windows, some customers have Linux on their machines and I need to be able to help “everyone”.

I have long wanted a dual boot scenario, boot I do not like messing up my work (or home) computer by partitioning it and have several OS’s on the same HD. (Done it once, and due to HW failure and a lack of Linux experience lost everything). Now I have found myself a solution to this problem. I bought an 8-gig memory stick, and installed Ubuntu 9.04 on it. It is now possible for me to boot from a completely independent OS environment on my laptop. All I have to do to boot into Ubuntu is to select the USB device at startup.

The process was fairly simple and I wanted to share it with you:
1. I downloaded and created a installation CD with Ubuntu
2. I removed the HD from my HD
3. I booted from the CD
4. I installed Ubuntu onto the USB stick.
5. I booted from the USB device, configured my environment and updated security patches.