Ransomware Restore-Proof Checklist
What an insurer means by immutable, why retention is not recoverability, and what a restore test has to produce before it counts as evidence - mapped to Microsoft 365 Backup and Azure Backup.
The problem
Two questions sit behind the backup control on every insurance questionnaire, and behind a board asking whether you could come back. Could an attacker who holds your administrator credentials destroy the backups? And has anyone ever restored from them? Most teams can answer the first with a policy and cannot answer the second at all. This checklist separates the two, names what Microsoft actually gives you for each, and sets out what a restore test has to produce before it counts as evidence rather than reassurance.
What's inside
- What 'immutable' means on a questionnaire, and where Microsoft's own wording stops short of it
- The difference between retention, which keeps copies, and recoverability, which gives you a point to roll back to
- The Microsoft 365 workloads Microsoft 365 Backup covers, and the ones it does not
- What a restore test has to produce - the record, the two numbers, and who signs it
Who it's for
- Teams answering the backup and recovery section of an insurer's questionnaire
- IT and security leads asked by a board whether the business could actually come back
- Anyone whose Microsoft 365 backup is currently the recycle bin and a retention policy
Where this leads
Ransomware Recovery Pack
from £7,000 / $9,000
Work the checklist yourself first - it is yours to keep. If the gaps turn out to be more than an afternoon's work, this is the fixed-scope engagement that closes them against your date.
The Recovery Guarantee: a full restore of your Microsoft 365 and Azure data demonstrated and evidenced, or we keep working free.
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Find out where you stand, free
Most engagements start with a no-cost posture audit against the baselines that matter to you. If a fixed-fee roadmap is the right next step, we'll say so - and if it isn't, we'll say that too.