Cobalt Briefing

Updated 24 August 2026

Business IT & comms, decoded daily

The news that actually affects how you run a business in the South West — the phone switch-off, cyber threats, Microsoft 365, connectivity and AI. No jargon, no scaremongering, just the useful version with a clear “so what.”

Lead storyThe Switch-Off

Consumers get a fallback when the old phone network switches off. Business lines do not.

A survey published this week found 45% of landline users still unclear about the switch-off. Openreach counted around 350,000 business premises still on legacy copper at the end of July, and those lines face disconnection rather than a stopgap service.

26 August 20265 min read

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Latest on the wire

Weekly Roundup · Week of 17 to 23 August 2026

The week in business IT & comms

This week: the NCSC publishes its first practical advice on running AI agents, ransomware keeps landing on mid-sized firms, UK fraud filings hit a record, and Gamma confirms it is in takeover talks.

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The newsroom

Browse every story by topic

Filter the newsroom to what matters to you — the switch-off, your security, your connection, Microsoft 365 or AI.

The Switch-Off

Consumers get a fallback when the old phone network switches off. Business lines do not.

26 August 20265 min read

Cyber Security

The newest phishing pages screen out personal email addresses. They only want the work login.

Research into a campaign called RecruitTrap describes fake recruiter messages and a sign-in page that, opened on a phone, has no address bar left to check.

26 August 20264 min read

AI for Business

The NCSC has written down what to check before you let an AI agent near your systems

Interim advice published on 20 August covers autonomy, oversight, credentials and the ability to stop an agent mid-task. Most of it translates straight down to a business with 20 staff.

24 August 20266 min read

Compliance & Data

The ICO has just written up what happens when nobody owns the patching

A content management system sat unpatched for years because each supplier understood the job to be somebody else's. The regulator named that gap, not the software, as the failure.

17 August 20265 min read

Connectivity & Broadband

Your connectivity supplier and your IT supplier are becoming the same company

TalkTalk Business and ARO are merging into a £200m group with more than 70,000 business customers. Consolidation at that end of the market changes what is worth asking before your next renewal.

17 August 20264 min read

Cyber Security

One exposed key at a software supplier put its entire customer database in the wrong hands

Beacon's CRM holds records for more than 1,500 UK charities. An AWS key left sitting in public build files is the likely way in.

14 August 20264 min read

Cyber Security

Small firms are quietly going backwards on the cyber basics

Nearly half of small businesses were hit in the previous year. The share doing the simple groundwork fell.

3 August 20263 min read

Microsoft & Cloud

Microsoft 365 business prices rose on 1 July, and the CMA is now looking at Copilot

Business Basic and Business Standard went up. Business Premium did not. The competition investigation that followed covers consumer plans, not business ones.

29 July 20263 min read

The Switch-Off

Stop Sell hits all 1,572 Openreach exchanges on 20 August. Here is what it blocks.

Another 112 exchange areas joined the list this month. From 20 August the rules apply everywhere they have been declared, covering roughly 15.4 million premises.

28 July 20264 min read

Cyber Security

US authorities have ordered a rush patch on a Fortinet security product. The lesson is one every business already knows.

Two critical flaws in Fortinet's FortiSandbox let an attacker take it over with no password. CISA put them on its must-patch list with a deadline of Sunday 19 July.

17 July 20264 min read

Connectivity & Broadband

The broadband regulator is investigating five fibre providers over their finances. Worth knowing who you are signing with.

Ofcom opened investigations on 16 July into whether five alternative fibre networks have set aside the funds they are legally required to hold. The wider altnet market is having a rough month.

16 July 20264 min read

Cyber Security

Stolen logins have overtaken software flaws as the top way into a ransomware attack. Turn on MFA.

New Sophos figures show 79% of ransomware attacks now start with a stolen login, not an unpatched system.

15 July 20264 min read

Compliance & Data

A new cyber law will regulate IT providers for the first time. If you outsource your IT, this is about you too.

The Cyber Security and Resilience Bill reached the House of Lords on 14 July. For the first time it pulls managed IT providers into cyber regulation, aiming to close a supply-chain gap.

14 July 20264 min read

Microsoft & Cloud

Microsoft just shipped its biggest ever batch of security fixes, and two are already being used in attacks.

This month's Windows update fixed a record number of flaws, and two of them are already being used in real attacks. Applying it promptly is the whole job.

14 July 20264 min read

Cyber Security

The government has added cyber attacks and major IT outages to its national risk register. The lesson scales down to small firms.

Seven new risks were added on 14 July, including attacks on data centres and a CrowdStrike-style 'digital resilience failure'.

14 July 20264 min read

Cyber Security

The UK has warned that Russian hackers are hunting for routers with weak passwords. The fix is basic hygiene.

A joint alert from the NCSC and allied agencies on 13 July describes a Russian group scanning the internet for network kit still using default or weak credentials. Most of the defence is unglamorous.

13 July 20264 min read

Microsoft & Cloud

Windows is turning off an old security setting this month. If a login or a background job breaks, this is why.

The Windows update due on 14 July finishes a change that stops the login system trusting the weak RC4 cipher. Anything on your network still relying on it can fail without warning.

10 July 20264 min read

Cyber Security

A flaw in a common website builder is under active attack. If your site runs Joomla, update it now.

US authorities flagged four actively-exploited flaws on 7 July, two of them in popular Joomla page builders. Attackers were planting backdoors within hours of the fixes.

10 July 20264 min read

Telephony & VoIP

Phone and text scams now drive more than a quarter of UK fraud losses. The fix is a habit, not a gadget.

The latest UK Finance figures put telecoms behind 17% of fraud cases but 28% of the money lost. The costly ones start with a convincing call or message.

10 July 20264 min read

Connectivity & Broadband

Ofcom just fined Virgin Media £28m for making it hard to leave. Know your own switching rights.

The regulator handed down its largest ever fine for direct consumer harm on 8 July. The behaviour behind it is a useful prompt to check the exit terms on your own contracts.

8 July 20263 min read

AI for Business

A ransomware attack was just run start to finish by an AI. The lesson is an old one.

Researchers have documented the first break-in where an AI agent did the whole job on its own. It got in through software nobody had patched since 2025.

4 July 20263 min read

A glowing security shield with a keyhole sitting on a dark network appliance, cracked down the middle with orange streams of light and data particles leaking out, on a deep purple field, representing sensitive data escaping a vulnerable remote-access gateway.

Cyber Security

Another Citrix remote-access flaw is out. Patching your gateway can't wait.

A new NetScaler vulnerability disclosed on 30 June lets an attacker read the memory of an unpatched remote-access gateway. That's the kit sitting between the internet and your network.

2 July 20264 min read

Cyber Security

A SharePoint server flaw is under active attack. If you run it on your own kit, patch now.

US authorities added CVE-2026-45659 to their known-exploited list on 1 July and gave agencies three days to fix it. It affects SharePoint you run yourself, not SharePoint Online.

2 July 20263 min read

A row of translucent desktop app tiles on a deep purple field, with one new tile carrying a glowing orange spark icon sliding into place on its own, ringed by an install-progress arc, representing an app installing automatically in the background.

Microsoft & Cloud

The Microsoft 365 Copilot app is installing itself on business PCs. You can turn that off.

Through to mid-July, eligible Windows machines running Microsoft 365 business apps get the Copilot app added automatically. It's on by default, and an admin has to opt out.

2 July 20264 min read

A bundle of aged copper telephone wires beside a rising orange bar chart and upward arrow made of glowing light, on a deep purple field, representing the rising cost of legacy copper phone lines.

The Switch-Off

Copper line prices rose again on 1 July. Staying put now has a real cost.

Openreach's wholesale copper line rental goes up another 40% today, after 20% in April, with a further 40% due in October. Doing nothing has become the expensive option.

1 July 20263 min read

$A network of glowing interconnected business nodes on a deep purple field, with a bright orange fracture at the centre rippling outward along the connecting lines, representing a cyberattack spreading through a connected supply chain.$

Cyber Security

The Jaguar Land Rover hack was Russian. The lesson still lands on smaller firms.

Investigators have pinned the most damaging cyberattack in UK history on a Russian group. You don't have to be the target to be a casualty.

30 June 20264 min read

A glowing cloud platform with floating productivity panels and an ascending orange arrow, representing Microsoft 365 subscription prices rising.

Microsoft & Cloud

Microsoft 365 prices rise on 1 July — what's going up and what isn't

Microsoft's new pricing lands on 1 July. Most business plans go up, a couple hold flat, and existing subscriptions change at renewal. Here's the plain version.

27 June 20264 min read

An old copper telephone switchboard dissolving into glowing fibre-optic strands, representing the staged move off the legacy phone network.

The Switch-Off

The switch-off won't be a 'big bang' — but the deadline still stands

Openreach says there won't be a single overnight cut-off in 2027, and the number of old lines is falling fast. The businesses left on legacy lines are the ones paying for it.

26 June 20264 min read

A digital padlock on a network grid with a single highlighted entry point, representing how cyber breaches find a way in.

Cyber Security

612,000 UK businesses were breached last year — most attacks start the same way

The government's 2026 breaches survey puts the number of affected businesses at around 612,000. The most common way in hasn't changed: a convincing email.

25 June 20264 min read

Glowing fibre-optic strands sweeping through a set of balance scales with a price tag and coins, representing the review of fibre and leased-line pricing.

Connectivity & Broadband

Ofcom is reviewing the price of full fibre and leased lines — change is due in October

Openreach wants to reset its wholesale prices for full fibre and business leased lines from October. Ofcom is checking the maths. Here's what it could mean for your connection.

24 June 20264 min read

An abstract neural network, one half brightly lit and one half dim, representing the gap between adopting AI and getting real value from it.

AI for Business

Most UK firms now use AI — the gap is between using it and getting value from it

Adoption has passed half of UK firms. But most use off-the-shelf tools, and the ones seeing real change are doing something harder. Here's what separates them.

23 June 20264 min read

A glowing protective shield and balanced scales over a stream of data files, representing UK data-protection rules and compliance.

Compliance & Data

New UK data rules are now live — every business needs a complaints process

The Data (Use and Access) Act brought in a new duty from 19 June. There's no small-business exemption, and the fines for getting marketing wrong have risen sharply.

22 June 20264 min read

A glowing countdown dial entwined with an analogue phone handset and coiled cord, representing the ticking deadline for the phone network switch-off.

The Switch-Off

The phone switch-off enters its final stretch — and staying put now costs more

Roughly 2.8 million UK lines are still on the old network being switched off by January 2027, with more than half a million serving businesses. The price of waiting is going up.

22 June 20264 min read

A glowing certification seal with a checkmark, gears and shields, representing the updated and stricter Cyber Essentials standard.

Cyber Security

Cyber Essentials just got harder to pass — here's what changed

The April 2026 update adds auto-fail rules, including a hard 14-day deadline to patch critical security holes. Good preparation matters more than ever.

22 June 20264 min read

A cloud of productivity app tiles around a glowing AI orb, representing Copilot becoming a built-in part of Microsoft 365 plans.

Microsoft & Cloud

Microsoft 365 prices change on 1 July — what to check before they do

From 1 July 2026, Copilot becomes a permanent part of the Business Standard and Premium plans rather than an add-on. Here's the plain version.

22 June 20263 min read

A voice soundwave flowing from a phone handset toward a protective shield, representing defence against AI voice-cloning payment scams.

Cyber Security

AI voice scams are aimed at your finance team — one rule stops the costly ones

Cloned-voice 'pay this now' calls are the fastest-growing fraud of 2026. The defence isn't clever technology. It's a habit.

22 June 20264 min read

Fibre-optic strands radiating across a map to glowing premises icons, representing full-fibre broadband now reaching most of the UK.

Connectivity & Broadband

Full fibre now reaches most of the UK — and copper is being wound down

New Ofcom rules took effect in April and full fibre passes most premises. If your connection has been the weak link, the ground has shifted.

21 June 20264 min read

Glowing stepping-stone blocks rising in a pathway from an orderly data grid, representing a smaller business taking its first steps into AI.

AI for Business

AI crossed the halfway line in UK business — where a smaller firm should start

More than half of UK firms now use AI in some form. The sensible move isn't to do everything. It's to start where it pays back and get your data in order first.

21 June 20264 min read

Go deeper

Guides & answers

The 2027 landline switch-off, explainedGuide

Is Cyber Essentials mandatory?Quick answer

Microsoft Copilot: is it worth it?Quick answer

Leased line vs business broadbandGuide

How to protect your business from phishingGuide

All guides & answersBrowse the library

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