Strengthening Identity Resilience: A Deep Dive into Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery

In today’s security landscape, we’ve all heard the phrase, “Identity is the new perimeter.” We allocate considerable resources towards things like Conditional Access, Phishing-Resistant MFA, and Identity Protection to keep out the “bad guys.” But what happens when the threat is lurking inside, or when a legitimate admin action goes awry?

If our identity data—the brain of our Microsoft 365 and Azure environment—gets corrupted or tampered with, our entire security framework can collapse. Today, we’re diving into the new Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery feature, a built-in safety net aimed at ensuring our identity infrastructure stays robust against both mishaps and malicious attacks.

Why Having a Native Backup Matters

For a long time, Entra ID administrators relied on the Recycle Bin to restore deleted items. However, a significant gap existed: Attribute Corruption. If a script accidentally wipes out department and manager attributes for 10,000 users, or if a malicious actor tweaks our strict Conditional Access policies to create a loophole, the Recycle Bin won’t be much help—the objects aren’t deleted; they’ve simply become incorrect. Previously, reverting to a previous state required complicated PowerShell scripts or pricey third-party tools. Thankfully, Entra Backup and Recovery addresses this issue by offering a native, automated way to “roll back” the state of our objects.

Core Features: How It Works

This service is currently in Public Preview for customers with Entra ID P1 or P2 licenses and uses a straightforward but powerful “Snapshot” model:

1. Automated Daily Snapshots

Every day, the system captures a point-in-time snapshot of our tenant. At present, it keeps a 5-day retention window, enabling us to review the state of our environment from yesterday or earlier in the week to identify a “known good” setup.

2. Insights via Difference Reports

One standout feature is the Difference Report. Before going ahead with a restoration, we can check a specific snapshot against the live state of our tenant. This report offers a detailed look at:

• Object ID: Identifying exactly which user, group, or policy is impacted.
• Attribute Changes: A side-by-side comparison that shows the “Old Value” (from the backup) alongside the “Current Value” (live in the tenant).
• Metadata Loading: While the first report might take some time to display metadata, subsequent reports load almost instantly, allowing for quick triage during incidents.

3. Targeted Restoration

We aren’t stuck with an “all or nothing” recovery approach. We can opt to restore:

• All objects of a certain class (e.g., all Conditional Access Policies).
• Specific types of objects (e.g., only Service Principals).
• Individual Object IDs for focused recovery.

Defence in Depth: An Identity Strategy

Entra Backup and Recovery isn’t a one-off solution; it serves as the third pillar of a comprehensive identity resilience strategy. To truly fortify our tenant, we need to integrate these three elements:

Pillar 1: Soft Delete (The Recycle Bin)

This is used for restoring Deleted Objects. When a user or Microsoft 365 group is deleted, it remains in the Recycle Bin for 30 days. These items can be easily restored via the portal or Graph API, maintaining their original Object ID and SID.

Pillar 2: Protected Actions (The Vault)

To prevent an attacker from “hard deleting” our objects (removing them permanently from the Recycle Bin), we need to implement Protected Actions.

• How it works: We assign a “Conditional Access Authentication Context” to sensitive actions like Microsoft.Directory/deletedItems/delete.
• The Result: Even a Global Admin cannot permanently delete an object unless they meet strict criteria, such as using a Phishing-Resistant MFA key or accessing from a Secure Access Workstation (SAW).

Pillar 3: Backup and Recovery (The Time Machine)

This is for dealing with Corruption and Configuration Drift. When the object is still there but its properties have been compromised, this acts as our “Time Machine” to roll back attributes and policy logic to a functional state.

A Practical Example: Fixing a Bulk Logic Error

Imagine an admin runs a bulk update intended to change the JobTitle for the Sales team. Due to a logic error in the CSV file, the script instead wipes out the SecurityGroup memberships and ExtensionAttributes for the whole department.

1. Detection: Users find themselves locked out of apps as their group memberships vanish.
2. Analysis: The Admin generates a Difference Report comparing today’s state to yesterday’s snapshot.
3. Validation: The report confirms that 500 users now have “null” entries for the affected attributes.
4. Recovery: The Admin selects those 500 User IDs and clicks Restore. In mere minutes, the attributes are reinstated, and dynamic group memberships start recalculating automatically.

Conclusion and Next Steps

The introduction of Microsoft Entra Backup and Recovery marks a significant leap forward in native tenant protection. When combined with Protected Actions and the Recycle Bin, organisations can finally implement a fully circular protection model for identity.

Interested in giving it a go? Head over to the Microsoft Entra Admin Center, find Backup and Recovery in the left navigation panel, and check out your first snapshot today.