Why You Need to Backup Entra ID

Thousands of organisations worldwide rely on Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory) to manage identities and control access to business-critical systems. In fact, more than half of the Fortune 500 depend on it to authenticate users and secure access to applications such as Microsoft 365, Azure, and a wide range of third-party services.

Delivered as a cloud-based identity and access management solution, Entra ID provides a single, centralised dashboard for managing users, groups, roles, and application access, making it a foundational pillar of modern, cloud-first cyber security.

However, while this centralised approach simplifies administration, it also introduces risk. Entra ID represents a single point of failure if it is compromised, misconfigured, or accidentally altered. Even simple human errors, such as deleting users, groups, or permissions, can cause widespread disruption. If an organisation was to lose access to Entra ID for a week, or even a day, employees and administrators could be locked out of core systems entirely, effectively bringing business operations to a standstill and severely limiting the organisation’s ability to investigate or respond to an attack.

Because of Entra ID’s critical role, and the fact that the benefits to the bad actors of breaching it are growing, protecting it is no longer optional. While Microsoft provides strong native security controls (as part of the Shared Responsibility Model), its recovery and data retention capabilities are limited. This leaves organisations exposed to cyber attacks, accidental data loss, and configuration errors unless additional protection, such as dedicated backup and recovery, is put in place.

Entra ID: A Prime Target for Attackers

As the world’s largest cloud-based identity platform, Entra ID is a highly attractive target for cyber criminals. Threat actors increasingly focus on identities because compromising them provides a direct route into business-critical systems.

Microsoft threat intelligence reports reveal the scale of the problem. Attackers now launch around 600 million identity-based attacks every day, with more than 99% relying on password-based techniques such as phishing and password spraying. Last year alone, Microsoft reported blocking approximately 7,000 password attacks every second, which was up sharply from the previous year.

Advanced threat groups are actively targeting identity systems more and more to disrupt operations. They know this puts pressure on organisations to pay ransoms more quickly, especially with the ability to gain control access, escalate privileges, and disable security controls. Once attackers gain control of Entra ID, they can lock administrators out, modify permissions, and even undermine an organisation’s ability to respond to the incident.

Why Identity Is the New Perimeter

Identity protection encompasses the technologies and processes used to verify and safeguard users, devices, and applications. Where security once relied on a network perimeter, modern organisations now depend on identity as the primary control point.

Today’s identities extend far beyond usernames and passwords. They include multi-factor authentication (MFA), conditional access policies, device trust, and granular permissions. Each identity defines what a user or service can access across your environment.

Because identities sit at the centre of cloud access, they are an especially tempting target. In a world of SaaS applications, remote access, and bring-your-own-device policies, compromising identity often means compromising the entire organisation.

The Business Impact of Entra ID Compromise

Attackers understand the leverage Entra ID provides. With access to identity systems, they can disable accounts, manipulate permissions, and move laterally across the environment. In many cases, Entra ID compromise also provides access to password managers and authentication data, amplifying the damage.

This creates serious risks across three key areas:

1. Business continuity

If attackers control Entra ID, they can disrupt access to critical systems and applications, increasing the likelihood of successful ransomware attacks.

2. Compliance and regulation

Usernames and passwords are classified as personal data under regulations such as GDPR. A breach of Entra ID may therefore result in regulatory violations, fines, and reputational damage. In regulated sectors such as healthcare, the consequences can extend to HIPAA, NIS2, and cyber insurance compliance failures.

3. Operational resilience

Without reliable recovery options, restoring identity services can be slow, manual, and error-prone, especially under pressure during an active incident.

Securing Entra ID Is Necessary, but Not Sufficient

Microsoft Entra ID is not an insecure platform. In fact, Microsoft strongly encourages customers to implement best practices such as least-privilege access, multi-factor authentication for all users, careful management of administrative accounts, and regular reviews of permissions and guest access.

These measures are essential, but they do not address every risk. Even well-secured environments remain vulnerable to misconfigurations, insider mistakes, malicious changes, and advanced attacks. Critically, Microsoft’s native recovery options are very limited.

Depending on the licence tier, Entra ID logs and deleted objects may only be retained for between seven and 30 days. After that, recovery becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible.

Why Backup Is Essential for Entra ID

Entra ID operates under Microsoft’s shared responsibility model. While Microsoft secures the infrastructure, customers remain responsible for protecting their data, identities, and configurations.

Microsoft explicitly recommends using a third-party backup solution for Entra ID. Without one, organisations risk permanent data loss from accidental deletion, malicious activity, or delayed incident discovery. Manual exports are possible, but they are time-consuming, error-prone, and unsuitable for modern environments.

A dedicated, automated backup solution enables organisations to restore Entra ID data quickly, investigate incidents thoroughly, and meet regulatory and insurance requirements. Most importantly, it provides assurance that identity services, and the business itself, can recover when something goes wrong.

Building Cyber Resilience Through Entra ID Backup

To sum up, identity systems sit at the heart of modern IT environments. As attacks increasingly target identity rather than infrastructure, protecting and backing up Entra ID is a critical step toward true cyber resilience.

By combining strong identity security practices with reliable, third-party backup, organisations can reduce downtime, limit the impact of attacks, and maintain control over their most critical access systems, no matter what challenges arise.

Barracuda Entra ID Backup

Secure your “Keys to the Kingdom” with easy-to-use, cost-effective, and cloud-first backup of Entra ID data.

Barracuda Entra ID Backup delivers unlimited, cloud-based storage of Entra ID data for every user, retained for as long as your organisation requires. It is built on the same trusted, secure infrastructure used by Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup for Microsoft 365. For organisations already using Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud Backup, the basic version of Entra ID Backup is included at no additional cost, providing immediate value without added complexity.

The solution supports granular backups that enable precise remediation following a security breach, malicious activity, or accidental deletion. With a simple, intuitive interface, identity data can be protected in minutes, and all data is fully encrypted both in transit and at rest to meet stringent security and compliance requirements.

Effective cybersecurity strategies adopt an “assume breach” mindset, planning and preparing as though systems will eventually be compromised. In this context, fast and reliable access to backups is critical. Barracuda Entra ID Backup ensures organisations have the recoverability they need when prevention alone is not enough.

The basic edition of Barracuda Entra ID Backup protects all user identities, while the premium edition extends coverage to 13 Entra ID components, including users and groups, application registrations, audit logs, authentication data, and device management. This comprehensive protection supports both operational recovery and forensic investigation.

Backups and restores are managed through the Barracuda Cloud-to-Cloud application, allowing administrators to recover multiple items simultaneously without impacting system performance. This enables rapid recovery from everyday errors as well as large-scale incidents such as ransomware attacks.