12 Microsoft 365 Security Features and Best Practice Guidance – 10: Microsoft 365 Backup

What is it?

While this series of articles focuses on security, it's important not to overlook backup for Microsoft 365 and the data of all your users. Many organisations assume that data within M365 is automatically protected against all threats, but that's not the case. Without a dedicated backup solution, you're at risk of losing business-critical information through accidental deletion, malicious activity, or service issues. Backup should be considered a fundamental part of your overall security and resilience strategy.

Although Microsoft provides high availability and some retention capabilities, it does not guarantee full backup and recovery of all data across services like Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams.

A proper backup and recovery strategy goes beyond Microsoft’s native retention policies. It includes using third-party backup solutions to maintain point-in-time copies of data, ensure compliance with data protection regulations, and enable rapid recovery from accidental deletion, corruption, or ransomware attacks.

Why does it matter?

Relying solely on Microsoft's native tools for data recovery puts your organisation at risk. Data can be lost due to accidental deletions, malicious insiders, expired retention policies or service misconfigurations.

Without a dedicated backup solution, you could face:

• Permanent loss of important emails, documents and Teams data

• Delays in recovery during business-critical incidents

• Inability to meet compliance or legal obligations

• Disruption to productivity and decision-making

Having a structured backup and recovery plan gives you confidence that data can be recovered quickly, with minimal impact.

What does Microsoft recommend?

Microsoft clearly states that data responsibility lies with the customer. While tools like retention policies and litigation hold can help with compliance, they are not designed to replace true backup functionality.

Microsoft recommends customers adopt third-party or external solutions where they need:

• Long-term retention and full data restore capability

• Protection against malicious or accidental deletion

• Granular recovery at item or mailbox level

• Backup of metadata and permissions

• Support for compliance, legal hold or auditing

HybrIT addresses all of these needs with our Microsoft 365 Backup Solution.

Key Recommendations

• Use HybrIT’s immutable Microsoft 365 Backup Solution to protect all core Microsoft services

• Schedule regular backups that capture Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams data

• Validate recovery by running test restores for common scenarios

• Ensure backups are isolated from your Microsoft 365 tenancy for added protection

• Map backup and retention to your compliance and governance requirements

• Include admin audit logs and configuration state where possible

Best Practice Tips

• Define retention policies that align with business and legal needs

• Use immutable storage to prevent tampering or overwriting of backups

• Apply role-based access and multifactor authentication to backup systems

• Monitor backup jobs and alerts daily for failures or anomalies

• Document the backup and recovery process so your team knows exactly what to do

• Schedule periodic restore tests to ensure data can be recovered correctly and quickly

How can HybrIT Help?

At HybrIT, we deliver a fully managed Microsoft 365 Backup Solution designed to offer true peace of mind. Powered by Veeam and stored in our secure UK-based Private Data Protection Cloud, our service provides immutable, air-gapped backups that cannot be altered, encrypted or deleted even in the event of a ransomware attack.

We go far beyond standard backup by offering end-to-end protection that aligns with the modern 3-2-1-1-0 rule:

• 3 copies of your data

• 2 different media types

• 1 off-site copy

• 1 copy that is offline, air-gapped or immutable

• 0 backup errors, thanks to automated testing and daily monitoring

Our Microsoft 365 Backup Solution covers Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Teams and Entra ID. Whether you’re protecting against data loss, preparing for audits, or meeting GDPR compliance, we give you complete control and rapid recovery when it matters most.

Key benefits of HybrIT’s Microsoft 365 Backup Solution include:

• Immutable and secure off-site backup of all Microsoft 365 services

• Daily monitored, fully managed and verified backup jobs

• Designed and deployed by our expert backup team

• Eliminates reliance on Microsoft’s retention alone

• Flexible restore options at file, folder or entire site level

• Avoid large capital costs and move to a simple operational model

If disaster strikes or data is lost, we ensure you can recover confidently and quickly with minimal disruption to your users or operations.

📞 Call us on 03330 156 702📧 Email hello@hybrit.co.uk