Per a recent CBS report, users of Microsoft OneDrive, SharePoint and Outlook have recently been experiencing widespread service disruptions due to a cyberattack. Here is what their Service Agreement says.

With the acceleration of the transition to remote work following the COVID-19 pandemic, Microsoft's cloud services have become mission-critical infrastructure for more businesses than ever. The recent outages in Microsoft Office services should raise the question about what Microsoft's 15000-word Service Agreement has to say about the company's obligation to its customers as far as data is concerned.

Section 6 of the agreement clearly states that Microsoft accepts no liability for the impact of disruptions and data loss due to outages of their services. The section also recommends that users back up their data using third party services.

It's as simple as that: if you lose data stored on Microsoft's platform, they state that they do not provide backups for it. This can be detrimental if your business loses mission-critical data or information that is legally regulated (such as HIPAA-covered electronic protected health information) on Microsoft's cloud platform without any backups. It can also be a pain to regularly store and update backups of your cloud data on-premise.

So what can you do?

If your business or organization is working on a back-up plan to protect against the risks and uncertainty associated with service outages and human error, you may want to consider a third-party backup service - just like the Service Agreement suggests.

There are a number of benefits to this approach (known as 'back-up as a service' or 'BUaaS') to data security in cost, quality and reliability.

1. Automation enables more frequent backups

By backing up data from the whole range of Office 365 services that your business uses (i.e. OneDrive, Outlook, SharePoint) through an automated process - a BUaaS approach enables comprehensive and frequent updates to backups without additional strain on IT personnel.

2. Data retention capabilities enable regulatory compliance

For businesses and organizations storing data that is required by law to be retained can safeguard their compliance with robust data retention capabilities of BUaaS providers. Unlike a 'Recycling Bin' feature, which automatically deletes items after a set period of time, the BUaaS approach allows for data to be retained for as long as the client wants or needs.

3. Unmatched security

While storing back-ups on premise can meet many businesses' and organizations' needs for creating backups, this can be subject to a number of risks inherent with storing any asset on-premise. Utilizing a BUaaS approach reduces the risks to your data associated with physical security (i.e. damage to equipment, theft, and employee retaliation) and cybersecurity threats (i.e. ransomware) considerably.

How to get started

If you are interested in setting up BUaaS for your business's Microsoft Office data, want to know if BUaaS is right for your business, or have any other questions, please contact us or comment below.