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Data is one of the most important assets for any organization. It is data that provides you with a competitive advantage over competitors in the marketplace. According to the Microsoft Digital Defense Report, credential harvesting and malware were common attack techniques used. Microsoft blocked over 13 billion malicious or suspicious emails in 2019.
It is your responsibility to ensure your organization has Office 365 backup and recovery mechanisms in place. These mechanisms could help protect data against external threats, human errors, and outages, among other causes.
Reasons Why You Need Backup Solutions for Office 365
Data Loss Due to Human Error
Human error is a security gap that cannot be covered by Office 365. According to the same Microsoft report mentioned above, ransomware was the reason for the most incident response engagements by the company. Data could be held hostage, corrupted, or lost when an employee would open the wrong email, open non-trusted links, or accidentally delete data from the system. Without a backup in place, you could stand to lose the data forever.
Limited Backup and Recovery Time
The recovery time for most Office applications is limited. For example, deleted emails will stay in the recycling bin for 90 days. Restoring emails after the allotted time limit is not a possibility. Also, using the recycling bin as a temporary backup repository should be avoided as it is a risky approach, leaving your organization’s data vulnerable to attacks.
Business Continuity During Outages
Service outages or disruptions due to software or hardware issues could plague even corporate giants like Microsoft. The resultant downtime in services could disrupt your business and leave your customers stranded without any backup in place. Downtimes for businesses could result in monetary and data losses.
Protection Against External Threats
Microsoft Office 365 does come equipped with security features that could help protect you from external threats to an extent. But, these security mechanisms are not fool-proof. Cyber threats are increasingly becoming sophisticated. Organizations have to deal with malware, phishing, brute-force, ransomware, and credential harvesting attacks regularly. To overcome these challenges and protect data, Office 365 backup solutions, such as automated Microsoft Office 365 backup by Cloudally, would be the way to go.
Microsoft Service Limitation
According to Microsoft’s service agreement, they are not responsible for retrieving your stored data in case of an outage. Relying on Microsoft alone to protect your organization’s data would not be a wise move. Leverage the various third-party solutions available in the marketplace to backup data.
What Does Office 365 Backup Solution Include?
The various applications that can be backed up using third-party backup solutions are:
- Outlook
- Sharepoint
- OneDrive
- Contacts/ Calendars/ Tasks
- Groups and Teams
Depending on the solution you choose, you can download and store files, restore data onto another folder, site, or drive, manage shared mailboxes, restore tasks and events, and migrate mailboxes, among other backup mechanisms.
With third-party Office 365 backup solutions, you have more control over the retention policies. You can store data for a longer time. You can have better version control and recover data according to the version you require. Your source and backup data are stored separately. You could choose to save them on-premise or on a cloud. Strengthen your organization’s data security with efficient third-party Office backup solutions.
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