This story is part of the Nerds News briefing for April 7, 2026. Watch the full episode on YouTube or read all six stories together in the main briefing.

Safe Links URL Protection Lands in All M365 Business Plans

You’ve probably seen Safe Links without realizing it — that little "checking this link for security" popup that appears for a beat when you click a URL inside Outlook or Teams. Until recently, it was reserved for the higher-end enterprise plans. Microsoft is now extending it across every Microsoft 365 Business plan, which is a meaningful win for small business security.

Why is Microsoft pushing enterprise-grade security features further down the stack? The honest answer: the volume of email-based attacks targeting small businesses has exploded, and Microsoft is under pressure to protect every tenant, not just the ones paying for E5. We expect to see more of this — features that used to be premium quietly becoming standard.

One important note: Safe Links is not on by default. Turning it on requires a quick policy change in the Microsoft 365 admin center. If you’re an ACS managed services client, this is the kind of thing we just take care of for you — it’ll get layered alongside the Inky and Graphus protections we already deploy. If you’re not on a managed plan, ask your IT person (or an AI assistant) to walk you through enabling Safe Links policies for your tenant.

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How ACS helps

Stuff like this is exactly why we built our managed services packages — so small business owners don’t have to track every Microsoft announcement or wonder which patch matters. If you’d like an IT partner that watches this stuff for you and acts before it becomes a problem, schedule a quick call with our team and we’ll put a plan together.