No. Microsoft protects their infrastructure, not your data. If you delete something, get ransomware, or an employee goes rogue, Microsoft won't save you.
Quick answer: No. Microsoft protects their infrastructure, not your data. If you delete something, get ransomware, or an employee goes rogue, Microsoft won't save you.
What Microsoft Actually Does
Microsoft guarantees their infrastructure is available. Data centres won't burn down. Servers won't disappear. The service will be there.
What they don't do:
- Protect you from accidental deletion
- Protect you from malicious deletion (disgruntled employee, compromised account)
- Protect you from ransomware encrypting your files
- Keep long-term backups you control
- Guarantee you can recover data from months ago
The Retention Reality
Deleted emails: Recoverable for 14-30 days, then gone.
Deleted files in OneDrive/SharePoint: Recycle bin holds them for 93 days, then gone.
Deleted user accounts: 30 days to recover, then the mailbox and OneDrive are permanently deleted.
Ransomware: If encrypted files sync to OneDrive, you might recover versions from the last 30 days. Maybe. If you notice in time.
The Shared Responsibility Model
Microsoft is very clear about this. They call it "shared responsibility":
- Microsoft's job: Keep the service running, protect the infrastructure, physical security of data centres
- Your job: Protect your data, manage access, ensure you can recover from deletion or attack
What Proper Backup Looks Like
Third-party Microsoft 365 backup gives you:
- Independent copies stored outside Microsoft (so ransomware can't reach them)
- Long-term retention - keep data for years, not weeks
- Granular recovery - restore one email, one file, one user, or everything
- Your control - you decide retention, you control access
Our Approach
We include Microsoft 365 backup in our managed services. Your data is backed up daily to independent UK storage. We can restore a single email from two years ago or recover an entire mailbox in minutes.
Because "Microsoft will have it" isn't a backup strategy.
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- we'll tell you what's actually protected.
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