For many businesses in the UAE, Microsoft Entra ID is a service used in conjunction with other Microsoft services such as Microsoft 365 and cloud applications, along with remote access and other business-related services. The changes to or deletion of important identity configurations by users can have implications beyond a single user account.
When important configuration objects are deleted or changed, Microsoft Entra ID backup and restore services allow users to protect critical identity data and restore supported items to a known state. Microsoft now provides a built-in Entra Backup and Recovery capability with daily backups and up to seven days of backup history, while organisations may also consider broader third-party protection depending on their recovery and business continuity requirements.
The greater concern for businesses in Dubai and the UAE is not contingent on how Microsoft Entra ID is backed up. The greater concern is on the organization’s ability to recover its identity environment.
What Is Microsoft Entra ID?
Microsoft Entra ID, formerly known as Azure Active Directory, is Microsoft’s cloud-based identity and access management platform.
Businesses use it to manage:
- User identities
- Groups
- Application access
- Authentication
- Conditional Access
- Service principals
- Application registrations
- Authentication policies
- Access permissions
- Microsoft 365 identity integration
For an employee, Entra ID might simply appear as the account used to sign in to Microsoft 365. Behind that sign-in, however, there can be a much larger set of configurations controlling who can access applications and what they are allowed to do.
This makes identity protection an important part of overall IT security.
Why Is Entra ID Backup Important?
When businesses think of backup, they typically consider files, records, databases, servers, or Microsoft 365 mailboxes.
Identity data can be easily overlooked.
However, think of the fallout from the accidental deletion of a user by an admin, the incorrect modification of a Conditional Access policy, settings of an application, or the unauthorized modification of an application after an admin is granted control and an attack is successfully executed.
In this situation, loss of a single user may not represent the entire damage. Modifications of the identity configuration can impact users’ ability to authenticate and access business application services provided by the organization.
Microsoft recommends that customers of their services prepare for the loss and mistimings of configurations.
Therefore, identity recovery should be part of a UAE business’ cloud services extensive backup and disaster recovery planning.
Is Microsoft Entra ID Automatically Backed Up?
Microsoft has introduced a new feature for some of its commercial clients. This will apply to a certain segment of their workforce clients.
Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery will allow Tenants to recover supported objects. Microsoft claims that these objects will be automatically backed up daily to a 7-day retention period. Included supported objects are users, groups, applications, service principals, Conditional Access policies, named locations, authentication method policy, and selected authorization policy properties.
While this offers some degree of protection, clients should know the restrictions and limitations of this safety net.
Not all Entra objects or properties will be protected. Microsoft also notes restrictions concerning some hard-deleted objects and on-premises synchronized objects.
That means organisations should not simply assume:
“Microsoft has a backup, so our entire identity environment is covered.”
A proper recovery strategy still needs planning, documentation, testing, access controls, and an understanding of which identity components are business-critical.
What Can Be Recovered?
The recoverability of an object depends on the object and the type of change.
Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery Services can restore several important identity objects, including users, groups, applications, service principals, and certain security and access configuration settings. Administrators can also perform a comparison of their current environment and a backup prior to initiating a recovery operation.
This comparison is very beneficial as performing a recovery operation on identity objects without having knowledge of the changes that occurred can introduce other unintended issues.
A different report allows administrators the ability to review the changes prior to performing recovery operations.
Microsoft Entra ID Soft Delete vs Hard Delete
Understanding the difference between soft deletion and hard deletion is essential.
When supported objects such as users, Microsoft 365 groups, cloud security groups, application registrations, and service principals are deleted, they can enter a soft-deleted state.
Several of these objects can be restored for a period of thirty days. After thirty days, hard deletion occurs and they cannot be restored using soft deletion.
As an example, it is stated that during this thirty day period, deleted user accounts are in a suspended state and can be restored. After this period, user accounts are permanently removed and are no longer restorable.
For these reasons, businesses should not depend solely on the recycling bin.
A recycle bin is useful for short-term recovery, but it is not the same thing as having a broader, documented backup and recovery strategy.
Common Microsoft Entra ID Risks for UAE Businesses
Businesses can face several identity-related risks.
1. Accidental Administrator Changes
An administrator may unintentionally modify a security policy, group membership, application configuration, or user attribute.
Even a small configuration mistake can affect multiple employees.
2. Accidental User Deletion
Deleting the wrong account can prevent an employee from accessing Microsoft 365 and other connected applications.
Although supported deleted users can often be restored within the recovery period, organisations should still have a defined process for handling these incidents.
3. Compromised Administrator Accounts
An attacker who gains access to a privileged administrator account may be able to make significant changes to the identity environment.
This is why backup should be combined with strong identity security, MFA, privileged access management, monitoring, and least-privilege principles.
4. Misconfigured Conditional Access
Conditional Access policies control how users access resources.
A poorly configured policy can unintentionally block legitimate users or weaken security controls.
Being able to compare the current configuration with a previous known-good state can make recovery easier.
5. Application Configuration Changes
Many businesses connect third-party applications with Microsoft Entra ID.
Changes to application registrations, service principals, permissions, or provisioning configurations can affect business applications.
Microsoft recommends maintaining recovery processes for identity and application configurations as part of a broader resilience strategy.
Microsoft Entra ID Backup vs Microsoft 365 Backup
These two are related but should not be treated as exactly the same thing.
Microsoft 365 backup generally focuses on protecting business data and workloads such as Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive, and other supported services.
Microsoft Entra ID backup focuses on identity objects and configurations that control authentication and access.
A business can have a strong Microsoft 365 backup strategy while still needing to pay specific attention to its identity configuration.
This is particularly important because identity is often the gateway to other cloud services.
If an organisation cannot properly recover its identity layer, recovering other cloud workloads may become more complicated.
Where Does Acronis Fit In?
Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud hosts Microsoft Entra ID protection for organizations seeking a wider range of cloud data protection and recovery.
Acronis augments protection for identity data such as users and groups, audit logs, and Conditional Access policies, within its ID backup and recovery. A documented recovery process gives administrators the ability to assess and restore protected changes to the recovery data and compare it with the live environment.
Identity protection as a part of a more holistic cyber protection strategy is useful to a large extent for businesses and service providers.
The important point is that Microsoft native recovery and third-party backup solutions should be evaluated based on the organisation’s specific requirements rather than assuming one approach is automatically suitable for every business.
Benefits of Entra ID Backup for UAE Businesses
Faster Recovery
When an important identity configuration is changed or deleted, having a known-good recovery point can reduce the time needed to restore normal operations.
Better Business Continuity
Employees depend on identity systems to access business applications. Protecting the identity layer can therefore support wider business continuity.
Protection Against Accidental Changes
Not every incident is a cyberattack. Human error remains a realistic risk in any IT environment.
A recovery capability provides another layer of protection against mistakes.
Better Preparedness for Security Incidents
If an administrator account is compromised and identity configurations are changed, the ability to identify and recover affected objects can become an important part of incident response.
Greater Visibility
Comparing current identity configurations with previous backup states can help administrators understand what has changed and determine which objects require attention.
What Should a UAE Business Include in Its Entra ID Recovery Plan?
Backup technology is only one part of the process.
A practical recovery plan should include the following.
1. Identify Critical Identity Objects
Determine which users, groups, applications, policies, and configurations are essential to daily operations.
2. Protect Administrative Accounts
Use strong authentication, MFA, least privilege, and appropriate privileged access controls.
Giving every administrator excessive permissions increases the potential impact of a compromised account.
3. Monitor Identity Changes
Keep track of important administrative activities and configuration changes.
Microsoft Entra audit logs record deletion activity, which can help organisations investigate unexpected changes.
4. Define Recovery Procedures
Document who is responsible for recovery and what steps should be followed during an incident.
During an outage or security incident is not the right time to decide who has permission to restore critical identity objects.
5. Test Recovery
A backup is only useful if you know how to recover from it.
Organisations should periodically test their recovery procedures and confirm that important applications, users, permissions, and authentication processes work as expected.
How to Improve Microsoft Entra ID Security Alongside Backup
Backup should not replace preventative security.
A stronger identity protection strategy combines recovery with security controls such as:
- Multi-factor authentication
- Conditional Access
- Least-privilege access
- Privileged Identity Management
- Strong administrator account protection
- Regular access reviews
- Audit log monitoring
- Security alerts
- Secure application permissions
- Regular configuration reviews
Microsoft also recommends least privilege and monitoring as part of secure Entra ID governance.
The goal is simple:
Prevent the incident where possible, detect it quickly when it happens, and recover efficiently when prevention fails.
What About Hybrid Active Directory Environments?
Many UAE businesses still operate a combination of on-premises Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID.
In these environments, it is important to understand where the source of authority for each object exists.
Microsoft notes that certain users and groups synchronized from on-premises Active Directory cannot be recovered using Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery; the corresponding recovery needs to happen in the on-premises Active Directory environment.
This means hybrid organisations need a recovery plan covering both sides:
On-premises Active Directory + Microsoft Entra ID
Protecting only the cloud identity layer may leave an important part of the environment uncovered.
How Often Should Entra ID Backups Be Taken?
Microsoft’s built-in Entra Backup and Recovery currently creates backups automatically once per day and retains up to seven days of backup history.
However, businesses should think beyond frequency.
The right recovery strategy depends on:
- How critical identity services are
- How quickly the business needs to recover
- Regulatory and contractual requirements
- The size and complexity of the environment
- Whether the business uses hybrid identity
- How much historical recovery is required
- Which identity objects need protection
For some organisations, native daily recovery may be sufficient. Others may require additional protection or broader retention depending on their business continuity requirements.
Is Microsoft Entra ID Backup Necessary for Small Businesses?
Yes, smaller organizations need identity recovery as well.
An organization that consists of only a few employees will probably use some combination of Microsoft 365, cloud applications, CRM systems, accounting software, and services connected to Entra ID.
In these cases, one or a few administrator accounts can control access to all or a substantial number of systems. If a hacker obtains access to one such account, the impact can be extremely large.
The answer is not necessarily buying the most complex backup solution available.
Before investing in a backup solution, companies need to identify challenges related to existing identity and access management systems and applications. Once those challenges have been identified and prioritized, the company can develop a recovery solution.
Best Practices for Microsoft Entra ID Backup and Recovery
For UAE businesses, the following practices can provide a solid foundation:
- Know what identity data is business-critical.
- Use MFA for privileged accounts.
- Follow least-privilege principles.
- Monitor important identity changes.
- Understand Microsoft's native recovery capabilities.
- Know the difference between soft and hard deletion.
- Document recovery procedures.
- Test recovery regularly.
- Document recovery procedures.
- Test recovery regularly.
- Protect hybrid Active Directory separately where required.
- Evaluate additional backup based on your retention and recovery requirements.
Final Thoughts
Microsoft Entra ID is a login technology, but it is even more critical for many UAE businesses when implementing the identity and access layer for Microsoft 365 and other cloud applications as well as business application infrastructure.
Microsoft Entra ID, and the respective backup and recovery services, becomes an important part of an organization’s IT strategy for stronger cyber resilience.
Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery service automates the daily backups of specified objects and provides recovery services, but it has some retention restrictions and object coverage limitations that are important for organizations to understand before implementation.
More advanced and protection-focused identity environments or hybrid identity infrastructures may require the greater backup protection services from Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud.
The best approach is not simply to ask, “Do we have an Entra ID backup?”
Instead, ask:
“If our identity environment were accidentally changed, deleted, or compromised today, could we confidently restore the business to a known-good state?”
If the answer is uncertain, it may be time to review your Microsoft Entra ID protection and recovery strategy.
Strengthen Your Microsoft Entra ID Protection
Your identity environment plays a critical role in keeping employees, applications, and business data accessible. A single accidental deletion, misconfiguration, or compromised administrator account can disrupt access and create serious business risks. With the right backup and recovery strategy, your organisation can be better prepared to recover critical identity configurations when they are needed most.
Explore Acronis Cyber Protect solutions for Microsoft Entra ID backup and recovery and build a more resilient identity protection strategy for your UAE business.
Protect your identities. Recover faster. Keep your business moving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Microsoft Entra ID backup protects supported identity objects and configurations so they can be recovered after accidental changes, deletions, or certain security incidents. Microsoft's native Backup and Recovery capability creates backups automatically once per day and retains up to seven days of backup history.
Supported deleted users can generally be restored while they remain in the soft-deleted state. Microsoft currently states that deleted users can be restored for 30 days before permanent deletion.
No. Entra ID primarily manages identity and access, while Microsoft 365 backup focuses on protecting supported productivity data and workloads. Businesses may need to consider both depending on their environment and recovery requirements.
Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery automatically creates daily backups for supported workforce tenants and retains up to seven days of backup history.
Acronis documents Microsoft Entra ID protection and recovery through Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, including protection of supported identity data and recovery workflows.
Hard-deleted objects cannot be recovered through Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery. Depending on the object and environment, the organisation may need to recreate and reconfigure it.
Potentially, yes. Microsoft notes that some objects synchronized from on-premises Active Directory need to be recovered in the on-premises environment rather than through Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery.
