This paper explains why native Microsoft 365 tools—Recycle Bin, versioning, and short-term retention—are not true backups and cannot protect against accidental deletion, internal misuse, ransomware, sync errors, or configuration failures. It outlines the shared responsibility model and clarifies that Microsoft ensures service uptime, while customers must secure, retain, and recover their data. The paper highlights risks to Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams, stressing the need for independent, immutable, long-term backups to ensure compliance, recoverability, and business continuity.

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