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...

A couple of favorite news about the world of Teams - Week 20

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Unless you disconnected yourself from the Internet last week, you probably already heard my first item this week. A much awaited "Direct Routing for Teams" has now been released for public preview. So if you have a certified SBC, a O365 tenant and PSTN infrastructure in your environment, it's time to sign up to skypepreview.com if you want to test PSTN in Teams and can't make use of Microsoft's own offerings. Guides available from Audicodes and Ribbon

Also rolling out as of last week, are a set of new meeting policies for a more granular control. here are some of the new policies available:

  1.  Allow Channel Meeting Scheduling (MeetingPolicy)
  2.  Allow Private Meeting Scheduling (MeetingPolicy)
  3.  Allow channel ad-hoc meet ups (MeetingPolicy)
  4.  Enable Screen Sharing (MeetingPolicy)
  5.  Allow IP Video (MeetingPolicy)
  6.  Allow Anonymous Users to Dial Out (MeetingPolicy)
  7.  Recording Policy implementation
There is an update to retention polices, ensuring that new code is rolled out to clients that will prune data older than 30 days. Then the min value for retention is also 30 days.

The list of great keyboard shortcuts keep getting longer and better. For a comprehensive look, check out the official documentation for both PC and Mac

This is a big one, I personally am really looking forward to see it in real action. Say hello to the Surface Hub 2