Sharepoint Online Backup and Restore Options

When it comes to sharing files, creating websites for team collaboration, versioning, and accessing files from any device, Microsoft SharePoint has been the industry standard for some time.  SharePoint is a powerful tool that organizations have long used to serve this purpose and provide secure, efficient, and easy access for teams on-premises.  

SharePoint Online brings all of these features to the cloud for your organization.  With that being said, as your business migrates data to SharePoint Online, it will most likely provide business-critical functionality and must be protected.  Why should you backup your SharePoint Online instance?  What SharePoint Online native backup and restore options are available?  What is the best way to protect your SharePoint Online data?  

Why backup SharePoint Online?  

SharePoint Online is Microsoft’s SharePoint solution in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offering.  The SharePoint Online offering is part of the Microsoft 365 SaaS portfolio of products available to customers.  Many may wonder why backups are needed for Microsoft 365 solutions since these are housed inside Microsoft’s world-class data centers with many “9’s” of uptime and availability.

There are two very dangerous risks to your SharePoint Online data housed in Microsoft 365.  These include:

• Ransomware
• Intentional or accidental deletion of data

How can these affect data stored in SharePoint Online?  

Ransomware

Ransomware has been described as the new age of malware.  Attackers have been evolving ransomware to target cloud environments and lock your data in cloud services like file storage, email, and even file-driven services like SharePoint Online.  

Attackers are no longer simply targeting anyone and everyone but are focusing their efforts in a major way on businesses in general.  This can be seen in major ransomware attacks making news headlines in recent months.  Take, for instance the recent attacks on Garmin and Blackbaud, resulting in millions in damages, disrupted services, and lost customer confidence. 

With the global pandemic, there has been a sharp increase in attacks targeting businesses and remote workers.  The FBI recently released statistics that they have seen a 400% increase in cyberattacks since the onset of the global pandemic.  

Ransomware infections in cloud environments can be delivered in a number of different ways.  These include phishing emails, OAuth delegation abuse, and risky third-party cloud applications and browser plugins.  Attackers are constantly looking at new ways and vulnerabilities to deliver ransomware across business environments, including cloud Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) environments like Microsoft 365.  

Intentional or accidental deletion of data

Many incorrectly assume that cloud service providers like Microsoft automatically protect data from all threats that may impact your data.  However, cloud service providers today generally operate in what they describe as a shared responsibility model.  This means there is a point where the protections they provide and are responsible for ends and your responsibility as the customer begins.

While the cloud service provider assumes the responsibility to keep the infrastructure up and running under the agreed-upon service level agreements (SLAs), when it comes to data loss, there is generally a disclaimer that you are responsible for protecting your data.  The details of Microsoft’s shared responsibility model can be found in the Microsoft Trust Center found here.  With these facts known, you, as the customer, are ultimately responsible for the actions of employees who delete data either accidentally or intentionally.  

Employees may perform a mass deletion of files from SharePoint Online accidentally.  They may also intentionally delete files mistakenly or even with unscrupulous intent if they have bad motives towards the business or are leaving on bad terms.  While the reasons or motives behind file deletions may be different, the end result is very much the same – data loss.  When there is data loss in your cloud environment such as SharePoint Online, the burden of responsibility is ultimately upon you as the customer to get the data back.

If you have a data loss that impacts your SharePoint Online environment, are there native ways to restore your SharePoint Online data?  

Native SharePoint Online Backup and Restore

When organizations migrate to cloud environments, many may lean on native features, and capabilities to provide backup and restore options.  When it comes to SharePoint Online, what native backup and restore options are available to your organization in the event of a disaster recovery event?

As highlighted earlier, there are really two different scenarios in SharePoint where data would need to be restored.  This is the case with data that is outright deleted (in the case someone deletes data accidentally or intentionally).  The second scenario requiring SharePoint Online data be restored involves data modification as in the case of a ransomware infection where files are encrypted and locked from access by an attacker.

What built-in mechanisms and capabilities are included in SharePoint Online that helps to recover from both of these scenarios?  Let’s look at what happens when items get deleted from SharePoint Online.  

SharePoint Online does not just store data as plain files on the backend.  Objects are stored in the SharePoint Online application database as chunks of encrypted code.  There are two possible recovery periods when data gets deleted.

1. When items are deleted, they are retained for 93 days from the time the object is deleted from the original location.  Once they are deleted, they stay in the SharePoint Online recycle bin for the remainder of the 93 days unless someone explicitly deletes the items from the recycle bin or the recycle bin is emptied.  
2. You have another 14 days after the items are emptied from the recycle bin to submit a ticket to Microsoft for help in restoring items back to your SharePoint Online environment.
3. The Microsoft restoration of your data in SharePoint Online in the 14-day window of time after data is emptied from the recycle bin comes in the form of a full site collection restore.  After data is restored, you have to sort out which data is the data you want to keep as duplicates are simply appended with a "_1" suffix, and files with no duplicates are simply placed in your library. 
4. Microsoft makes no guarantee about getting data back past these two windows of time.  

What about the situation where data is not deleted but rather, is changed or altered, in the case of a ransomware attack?  There is another native mechanism that provides a degree of built-in protection for your data in this case.  However, it does have its limitations.

Microsoft has extended file versioning to SharePoint Online.  With SharePoint Online, Microsoft has provided the ability to restore a shared library in SharePoint Online to a previous version if you have many files that get deleted, overwritten, corrupted, or infected by ransomware.  Additionally, the same capability exists for individual files in your SharePoint Online lists or libraries.

Viewing version history for SharePoint Online files (image courtesy of Microsoft)

The restore of a shared library or individual items allows you to restore items and revert actions that have happened for both files and folders within the past 30 days.  There are limitations to be aware of and to note with the file versions capability.  These include the following:

1. Library and file restores are limited to the previous 30 days back
2. Version history has to be enabled for a list or library
   
   

Enabling versioning settings for a list of library (image courtesy of Microsoft)

1. When version history is turned off, you won’t be able to restore files to a previous version
2. Deleted items can’t be restored after removal from the recycle bin
3. If files or folders are uploaded again after deletion, the restore operation will simply skip this file or folder
4. There may be some cases where files and folders cannot be restored
5. The “Restore this Library” functionality is available for the modern experience in SharePoint only and can’t be used to restore an entire library that has been deleted

SharePoint Online Backup and Restore without Limits

If your organization is making use of SharePoint Online, you want to have a backup and restore options that do not limit your ability to recover critical data such as those that are natively found in Microsoft 365.  While the SharePoint Online recycle bin and file versioning can serve a purpose, they do not provide enterprise-grade backup and restores for your SharePoint Online data.  Additionally, if your SharePoint Online data falls outside of the time limits provided by the native built-in capabilities, you will suffer data loss.  This is not an acceptable outcome for most businesses.  

SpinBackup by Spin Technology provides a true enterprise backup and restore solution for your SharePoint Online environment.  It allows backing up or restoring SharePoint Online data in just a few clicks in an easy and intuitive interface.  

Backing up SharePoint Online with SpinBackup

SpinBackup provides the ability for SharePoint recover deleted file operations and easily allows performing either granular or full site library restore operations.

With SpinBackup, you are provided with the following backup and restore capabilities:

• Automatic backups of SharePoint Online data
• Granular or full data restores
• Efficient incremental backups
• Encrypted backups
• Ability to store your SharePoint Online backups in the cloud of your choice (Amazon, Google, Microsoft)
• Ability to download data
• Unlimited retention (no 93 or 30-day limits, you get to choose how long you keep data)

As your organization migrates business-critical data to SharePoint Online, backups and restores are mission critical operations that are generally required at some point.  While native recovery features found in Microsoft 365 for SharePoint Online may work for some scenarios, relying solely on these native features will most likely lead to data loss.   

Be sure to check out a fully-featured trial version of SpinBackup to protect your SharePoint Online environment here.