Acronis extends Microsoft 365 protection with Entra ID Backup

Attackers have long focused on email and endpoints, but now they are increasingly targeting the identity layer that controls access to those resources. The new approach is subversive and highly effective: By compromising identities, threat actors can gain access to Microsoft 365, SaaS applications, devices and administrative functions without tripping the same alarms that traditional attacks trigger.

With the introduction of Entra ID Backup, Acronis is delivering a service that will enable managed service providers (MSPs) to protect the increasingly vulnerable Microsoft 365 identity layer.

Microsoft Entra ID sits at the center of modern Microsoft 365 environments. It manages authentication, authorization, user and group access, device access, application permissions, administrative roles and Conditional Access policies across the organization.

Attackers have noticed. Microsoft reports that it analyzes 38 million identity-risk detections on an average day, and Cloud Security Alliance researchers recently reported an OAuth device-code phishing campaign that compromised more than 340 Microsoft 365 organizations across five countries.

Many clients still think of Entra ID as a cloud directory service. In reality, it is the identity control plane behind Microsoft 365. When something goes wrong, the impact can be immediate and widespread:

• Users can lose access to Microsoft 365.

• Critical SaaS applications can become unavailable.

• Administrators can lock themselves out of tenant environments.

• Security policies can fail and compliance visibility can disappear.

That’s why protecting Microsoft 365 data alone is not enough. If the identity layer controlling access to that data is not recoverable, business operations remain at risk.

For MSPs, this becomes a service-delivery issue. Restoring a mailbox or SharePoint site may not be enough if the client’s users, groups, roles, app registrations or Conditional Access policies still need to be manually rebuilt.

Organizations should continue investing in preventive controls. For example, Acronis Security Posture Management for Microsoft 365 enables MSPs to proactively identify misconfigurations and reduce identity-related risk before incidents occur.

But prevention and posture management do not replace recoverability. Even well-managed tenants can be disrupted by accidental deletion, a faulty script, a misconfigured Conditional Access policy, a compromised administrator account or an over-permissioned application.

Microsoft provides cloud availability, native security controls and native Entra recovery capabilities for certain directory objects. However, the Microsoft 365 shared responsibility model still applies: customers remain responsible for protecting their data, configurations, identities and access policies in a way that supports operational recovery, governance and compliance requirements.

For MSPs, the challenge is not simply whether recovery exists. It is whether identity recovery can be delivered consistently across client tenants, aligned with existing Microsoft 365 backup workflows and managed without adding more disconnected tools.

Acronis Entra ID Backup extends Microsoft 365 protection from collaboration data to identity recovery. It enables MSPs to back up and recover critical Microsoft Entra ID identity and access objects, helping clients recover from accidental deletions, misconfigurations, cyberattacks and other disruptive identity incidents.

Instead of manually rebuilding identity objects, policies and relationships after a disruption, MSPs can recover from a known-good point in time and bring clients back to a working state faster.

With Acronis Entra ID Backup, MSPs can:

• Protect critical identity and access infrastructure.

• Recover from a known-good point in time.

• Reduce manual rebuilding efforts.

• Restore key relationships, permissions and configurations.

• Support audits, investigations and compliance requirements.

Protected assets include users, groups, roles, administrative units, app registrations, enterprise applications, Conditional Access policies, devices and selected Intune policies. MSPs can also preserve historical audit and sign-in logs for investigation and compliance purposes.

This matters because Entra ID recovery is not only about restoring individual objects. In many incidents, MSPs also need to restore the relationships between those objects, including group membership, role assignments, application access and policy configuration

That enables MSPs to support common identity recovery scenarios, including:

• Restoring users and groups after a mass deletion event.

• Recovering from a faulty Conditional Access policy that locks out users.

• Eestoring app registrations and enterprise applications after an SSO disruption.

• Accessing historical audit and sign-in records during a security investigation.

By protecting identities, policies, configurations and relationships, Acronis Entra ID Backup helps close the recovery gap that native capabilities leave behind.

 MSPs already face tool sprawl across backup, security, posture management, monitoring and incident response. A point solution for Entra ID recovery may solve one problem, but it can also add another console, vendor relationship, workflow and training burden.

Acronis provides a natively integrated platform that enables MSPs to protect Microsoft 365 across Exchange Online, OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams. And the Acronis Cyber Platform delivers all of that protection in a single console with a unified point of management.

That gives MSPs a more complete recovery workflow: protect the Microsoft 365 data clients depend on, protect the identity layer that governs access to it and recover both from the same operational model.

The result is a more complete Microsoft 365 protection strategy that enables MSPs to:

• Reduce risk through proactive security and posture controls.

• Detect suspicious activity faster.

• Respond more efficiently across Microsoft 365 environments.

• Protect both collaboration data and identity infrastructure.

• Recover faster when identity or data incidents occur.

With Entra ID Backup, MSPs can deliver more complete Microsoft 365 resilience from a single, natively integrated platform — protecting not only the data inside Microsoft 365, but also one of its most consequential attack surfaces: identity.

Learn how Acronis Entra ID Backup extends Microsoft 365 protection beyond data resilience and into identity resilience.