When your provider’s backup stops: where is your Microsoft 365, really?

You pay a provider to “back up Microsoft 365.” In everyone’s mind, it is handled: mail, Teams files, the project SharePoint. Then a technical notice lands—hard to parse at first—the backup service is down, copies are not running, and nobody knows when restore will work again. Meanwhile, business continues: quotes go out, attachments pile up. The only copy you can see is the one still running at Microsoft. This is not a big-company story alone: many SMBs and mid-market firms rely on integrators using tools such as ConnectWise Cloud Backup, still widely known under the old SkyKick name.

What ConnectWise has stated

In its Trust Center, ConnectWise describes an investigation opened on 16 October 2026 into unauthorized access attempts targeting the Cloud Backup environment. On 17 October, it confirmed unauthorized access to application identities tied to that service. As a protective step, it suspended Cloud Backup: certificate revocation, disabling seven application identities (Cloud Backup and several “Cloud Management” apps) at 07:00 UTC, cutting the connections used to back up Microsoft 365 tenants. SaaS Security and Cloud Management, integrated with the same stack, were also taken offline as a precaution.

Immediate impact for end customers: scheduled backups no longer run, archive access and restores stay unavailable until service returns. ConnectWise says stored archives remain encrypted, isolated, and preserved, with no indication they were compromised. It also notes it does not, by design, have visibility into what happened inside each customer Microsoft 365 tenant: every company (or its provider) must review connections, logs, and permissions—a technical investigation guide was published for that purpose.

The gap in your timeline

While the service is suspended, every message received and every file changed after the last successful backup run effectively depends on the live copy at Microsoft—not on a second copy you can use through the provider’s tool. ConnectWise asks partners to check their last successful restore point and the uncovered period during the interruption. On 19 October, it announced a full reset of accounts and credentials in the affected Cloud Backup environment, then phased restoration over several days. On 26 October 2026, the Trust Center update describes progressive partner onboarding: first a path to restore from existing backups, then re-enrolment, with a clear rule—do not re-enable applications until formal instructions arrive.

• Ask in writing: last successful backup, scope covered (Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams), and who owns restore if you need it this week.
• Check the second copy: a single provider backup contract is not a 3-2-1 strategy; a manual export or another product only counts if it is running now.
• Look at the tenant: with your provider or security contact, review connected Microsoft applications and permission changes since mid-October—the vendor published administrator steps.

If you are no longer sure who backs up what in your Microsoft 365—or a third-party outage just reopened the question—we can talk it through calmly: scope, last tested restore, and a plan B while the provider brings service back.