I hear it all the time. “We’re good. We use Microsoft.”
And I get why that feels reassuring. Microsoft 365 is reliable. It’s the backbone of modern work. Email, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive. Everything lives there, so it must be protected, right?
Here’s the problem.
Microsoft provides a powerful platform. A platform is not the same thing as a backup plan.
A backup strategy is not about where your files live. It’s about what happens when something goes wrong, and you need to get back to work fast.
The difference people miss: availability vs recoverability
Microsoft is built for uptime. That’s not the same as recoverability.
Recoverability is the question that matters in a crisis:
- If a user deletes a folder and doesn’t realize it for 60 days, can you restore it quickly?
- If a ransomware event hits a synced device, do you have a clean copy that’s not contaminated?
- If a key mailbox is purged or overwritten, can you roll it back to a point in time?
- If a disgruntled user or a compromised account wipes data, can you restore without guessing?
Most organizations do not discover their “backup gap” until they are staring down a deadline.
“But we have OneDrive and SharePoint sync.”
Sync is not a backup.
Sync is convenient. It changes everywhere.
That’s great when the change is correct. It’s brutal when the change is destructive.
- If a corrupted file syncs, it spreads.
- If ransomware encrypts a synced folder, that encryption can sync too.
- If someone deletes the wrong library, that deletion can sync.
When people tell me they’re covered because they sync, what they’re really saying is, “We made the same risk faster.”
Retention and recycling bins help, but they are not a strategy
Yes, Microsoft has retention features, versioning, and recycle bins. Those are useful tools.
But those tools are not a complete recovery plan because they depend on:
- the right policies being configured
- the right users having access
- the right data still being within retention windows
- the event being discovered in time
- the restoration being fast enough to keep operations moving
A real backup strategy is independent, testable, and designed for recovery, not just storage.
The real risks in 2026 are boring, and that’s why they win
Most data loss does not come from a Hollywood breach.
It comes from:
- accidental deletion
- failed migrations
- permission changes
- misconfigured policies
- vendor or admin mistakes
- compromised credentials
- ransomware
The common theme is simple: people and process.
Your systems are only as safe as your ability to recover from human error and malicious events without shutting down.
What a real backup strategy looks like
If you want the short version, here it is. A real backup strategy should be:
Independent
Your backup should not live inside the same system you are trying to recover.
Automated
Manual backups do not scale. They get skipped.
Monitored
A backup that fails silently is a false sense of security.
Tested
If you have never restored, you do not know if your backup works.
Designed around time
The two most important questions are:
Those are business questions, not IT questions.
A simple gut-check you can run today
Ask your team these five questions and see how confident the answers are:
- If an executive’s mailbox were deleted, how quickly could we restore it?
- If a SharePoint site was wiped or corrupted, can we restore it to last week?
- If ransomware hits a synced laptop, do we have clean copies outside that ecosystem?
- Have we tested a restore in the last 90 days?
- Do we know our recovery priorities if multiple systems are impacted?
If any of those answers involve guessing, you do not have a strategy. You have hope.
Why we keep talking about continuity at Xecunet
We are built around one idea: proactive beats reactive. Continuity is where that philosophy either holds up, or it doesn’t.
A good backup and recovery plan is not exciting. It is a quiet system doing its job every day, so your business can keep moving when something goes wrong. That includes remote backup services designed for business continuity, not just file storage.
Because in the real world, the goal is not perfect security.
The goal is recovery with confidence.
Microsoft is a foundation. It is not a parachute.
If your current backup plan is “we use Microsoft,” you are relying on the platform to do a job it was not designed to do on its own: complete, fast, point-in-time recovery across real-world failure scenarios.
Xecunet’s Remote Backup solutions are built for business continuity, not just file storage. We help you create reliable, encrypted backups with clear recovery priorities, so you can restore critical systems quickly after accidental deletion, hardware failure, outages, or ransomware.
Just as important, we monitor and test recovery, so you are not guessing when it matters most. Ready for real business continuity? We can help.