In today’s cloud-driven world, identity is a strategic asset that controls access and drives business performance.
As cloud services and SaaS applications have become the backbone of modern IT, identity has effectively become the key to the entire environment. Where user account used to be just a simple login credential to computer, nowadays identity is a central control plane that governs access to applications, data, devices, and services across the entire environment. From this perspective, identity is no longer just an IT component – it is a key element in organizations entire operating environment.
In traditional IT environments, identities primarily lived in onpremises Active Directory. Users, groups, and resources were located inside the corporate network, and backups were a well-understood part of daily operations: system state backups, snapshots and restores were natural part of IT processes. Now that we are living in the modern cloud era, the situation is very different.
Microsoft Entra ID is a global, cloudbased identity platform that connects:
Users and groups
Entra ID is no longer just an authentication service or extended component of Active Directory. It has become the key factor of the organization’s infrastructure, defining who can access what, when, and under which conditions. At the same time, one aspect has become more challenging: recoverability.
Many organizations still assume that “Microsoft takes care of this.” In reality, cloud services follow a shared responsibility model: Microsoft ensures service availability, but customers are responsible for their own identities and configurations.
Things can get more complex if organizations rely on hybrid identity: onpremises Active Directory that is synced with Entra ID. Changes in one environment affect the other, documentation is often incomplete, and it can be challenging to understand the dependencies between different platforms.
1. Identity Is a new attack surface Modern attacks increasingly target identities, permissions, and configurations rather than infrastructure components.
2. Human errors happen A faulty script, an incorrect bulk change, or a synchronization issue can delete users, groups, or access rights in seconds.
3. The Recycle Bin is not enough Entra ID’s recycle bin is limited ( 30 days), and not all objects or settings can be recovered. Hard deletes are possible.
4. Recoverability is a core part of business continuity Identities are a critical part of business continuity planning and are increasingly tied to regulatory and compliance requirements.
When it comes to identity, backups are often treated as a obvious part of processes: something that exists, something that was configured at some point, something that is assumed to work when needed. This used to work in traditional environments but in modern identity environments, this assumption is increasingly risky. Before choosing tools or implementing solutions, it is essential to stop and deliberately consider how identity backups should be done and what must be taken into account.
Modern identity is no longer a single directory or a static set of user objects. It is a constantly evolving system that spans platforms, services, and security controls. Backup strategies that worked in the past may no longer reflect how identity is actually used today. Without this pause for reflection, organizations risk protecting only parts of their identity environment—or protecting it in ways that no longer align with reality.
One of the most important considerations is that identity environments are very often hybrid by design. Onpremises Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID coexist, synchronize, and depend on each other. From a backup perspective, it is not enough to cover one side and assume the other will follow. Users, groups, permissions, and access decisions span both environments, and changes in one directory can have immediate and sometimes unexpected effects in the other. To be effective, backups must cover the hybrid identity environment as a whole, not as isolated components.
The complexity of modern identity structures adds another layer of challenge. Identity today includes far more than users and passwords: complex user rights, Conditional Access policies, application permissions, service principals, device identities, and authentication methods all influence access. This complexity means that verification requires special attention. It is no longer sufficient to know that a backup exists; organizations must understand what exactly can be restored and how those components interact after recovery. Without this understanding, recovery efforts may restore data but still leave the environment non-functional.
A recurring obstacle in many organizations is the lack of uptodate documentation. Over time, original design decisions fade, ownership changes, and documentation becomes outdated or incomplete. When a recovery situation occurs, this lack of clarity slows down decisionmaking and increases the risk of partial or incorrect restores.
Finally, identity backup strategies often struggle to keep pace with continuous technical change. Identity platforms evolve rapidly: new Entra ID features, new authentication models, new application integrations, and new security capabilities are introduced regularly. Backup plans that were sufficient a few years ago may no longer cover today’s identity landscape. Keeping recovery plans aligned with the pace of technical development requires regular review and adjustment—not a onetime configuration.
Identity has become the most critical component of modern IT – and at the same time, the most attractive target for attackers. The role of Entra ID continues to grow, yet identity backup is still too often overlooked.
''If identity is the key to everything, those keys must also be backed up.''
👉Join Our Webinar: How to Protect and Back Up Entra ID in Today’s Identity-First Threat Landscape
In the upcoming joint webinar by Innofactor and Nexetic, we will take a deeper look at modern identity threats and demonstrate in practice how Entra ID can be protected and backed up with Nexetic solutions in a controlled and effective way.