Office 365 runs in the cloud. Why do I need to back it up?

Microsoft's data centers are designed with world-class disaster recovery capabilities protect your data from infrastructure threats, such as hardware or software failure, power outages, or natural disasters. The Office 365 SLA covers uptime, or the ability to reach and use Microsoft services, but it doesn’t cover the protection of your data. People, through malicious or erroneous actions, represent the only consequential threat to your Office 365 data. Microsoft can’t protect you from the most common causes of data loss. Human error - Everyday human errors account for up to 64% of data loss incidents according to Aberdeen research. Employees inevitably delete the wrong email, contacts, or critical configurations. Illegitimate deletion requests - SaaS providers will honor your deletion request without question. They have no way of knowing if it’s a hasty (or malicious) request and they are not responsible for any unexpected results. Programmatic errors - Otherwise known as sync errors, those powerful tools designed to streamline business processes can ruin critical data in a flash — with no undo. Hackers - Whether through technical means or social engineering, aggressive individuals and organizations are constantly inventing new tactics for getting to your data. Malicious insiders - Employee action is involved in up to 23% of all electronic crime events, according to the CERT Insider Threat Center at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute. Malware and Viruses - Rogue software can spread mayhem with programmatic efficiency without an active attack from a hacker. Many malware programs and viruses emerge from existing code after hibernation, making them especially hard to defend against. Ransomware - Beyond a typical cyberattack, these forms of industrial-scale extortion are becoming increasingly aggressive and expensive.