If your business uses Microsoft 365, it’s easy to assume your data is automatically backed up and completely safe. After all, it’s a Microsoft product, and Microsoft is known for reliability, right?
Not quite.
Microsoft 365 is an incredibly secure and powerful cloud platform, but it does not provide a comprehensive, long-term backup solution by default. That means critical business information, including emails, files stored in OneDrive or SharePoint, and conversations in Microsoft Teams, could be permanently lost without a dedicated backup in place.
What Microsoft 365 Protects (and What It Doesn’t)
Microsoft operates under what’s called a shared responsibility model. This means Microsoft ensures that its services — Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive — are available and functioning, but you are responsible for protecting the actual content you store within those services.
Here’s what this looks like in practice:
- Outlook emails deleted from your inbox are only kept in the Deleted Items folder for 30 days. After that, they’re gone.
- OneDrive and SharePoint files go to the recycle bin for 93 days before being permanently deleted.
- Teams messages have no easy restore option, and point-in-time recovery is not included.
These built-in retention periods are fine for short-term issues, but they aren’t enough to meet business, legal, or compliance needs. If you need to recover something from six months or a year ago, you may be out of luck.
The Risks of Relying on Microsoft 365 Alone
The majority of data loss in Microsoft 365 isn’t caused by Microsoft outages — it’s caused by human error, malicious actions, or cyberattacks. And without a third-party backup, restoring lost data may be impossible.
Some of the most common risks include:
- Accidental deletions. A single mistaken click can erase critical files or emails.
- Malicious deletions. Departing employees or compromised accounts can delete sensitive data on purpose.
- Ransomware and malware attacks. If your data gets encrypted or corrupted, Microsoft’s built-in retention won’t protect you.
- Misconfigured retention policies. A setting change could wipe out old records you thought were safe.
- Compliance violations. Many industries have strict data retention rules, and failure to produce records during an audit or lawsuit can result in serious penalties.
Real-World Examples of Microsoft 365 Data Loss
- The Departing Employee
A sales rep left a company on short notice and deleted several key client folders from OneDrive before their account was disabled. The files weren’t discovered missing until four months later which was well past Microsoft’s 93-day recovery limit. Without third-party backups, the company had to rebuild the files from scratch, losing valuable time and damaging client trust. - The Phishing Incident
An accounts payable clerk clicked on a phishing email that led to a ransomware infection. The attacker encrypted files in SharePoint and OneDrive, and even altered some Teams documents. Microsoft’s default retention couldn’t roll back to a clean version from before the attack, but a third-party backup could have restored every file to a safe, pre-attack state in minutes. - The Compliance Audit
A healthcare practice was required to provide patient records from 18 months prior for a regulatory audit. Unfortunately, the necessary Teams messages and SharePoint files had been automatically purged under Microsoft’s retention limits. This not only delayed the audit response but also resulted in a compliance penalty. With a proper backup strategy, those records would have been available instantly.
Why Third-Party Backup Is a Must
A reliable third-party Microsoft 365 backup solution fills the gaps left by Microsoft’s default retention. It gives you:
- Automatic daily backups or even more frequent backups to capture changes throughout the day.
- Long-term retention to store your data for years, not just months, to meet compliance and legal requirements.
- Easy restores to recover an entire mailbox, a single file, or a specific email in minutes.
- Immutable backups where data is stored in a way that can’t be altered or deleted, making it ransomware-proof.
- Centralized management with one dashboard to oversee all backup activity across your organization.
With the right solution, your business can recover quickly from mistakes, security incidents, or system failures without losing valuable time, money, or customer trust.
To learn more about data backups, read The Complete Guide to Corporate Data Backup in 2025.
How MIS Solutions Can Help
At MIS Solutions, we specialize in managed Microsoft 365 backup services designed for small and midsized businesses. We handle the setup, monitoring, and ongoing management of your backups, so you never have to worry about data slipping through the cracks.
We tailor backup schedules and retention policies to your business needs, ensuring you meet industry compliance standards while protecting your most important asset: your data.
Bottom line: Microsoft 365 is an excellent productivity platform, but it’s not a full backup solution.
Most data loss comes from everyday human actions and cyber threats, not from Microsoft outages.
Don’t wait for a data loss disaster to highlight the gaps in your protection.
Contact MIS Solutions today to secure your Microsoft 365 data with a reliable, easy-to-manage backup system.
