Sophos and Rubrik Join Forces for Seamless Microsoft 365 Backup and Recovery

Sophos and Rubrik’s strategic alliance marks a significant milestone for cybersecurity and resilience strategies in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Announced at Black Hat USA 2025, their integrated solution—Sophos M365 Backup and Recovery Powered by Rubrik—delivers a pragmatic, workflow-centric approach to securing productivity environments. Rather than reinventing the incident response playbook, this offering unites threat detection and rapid recovery within a single operational hub, promising to elevate the capabilities of security teams without disrupting their established processes.

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Background: The Modern Threat Landscape and Recovery Mandate​

Microsoft 365 has become mission-critical infrastructure for organizations, empowering collaboration and productivity on a global scale. However, its ubiquity and integration with sensitive business data make it a lucrative target for cybercriminals. Ransomware, account compromise, and supply chain attacks have escalated, and adversaries increasingly aim not just at production data but also backup repositories themselves—a trend that renders traditional backup strategies dangerously insufficient.
For mid-market organizations reliant on managed detection and response (MDR) or extended detection and response (XDR), the challenge is compounded. Rapid response is essential, yet recovery must be bulletproof—isolated, immutable, and orchestrated with security context. Sophos and Rubrik’s partnership directly responds to these imperatives, promising seamless integration of defense and resilience.

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Product Integration: Sophos M365 Backup and Recovery Powered by Rubrik​

Embedding Recovery within Sophos Central​

Sophos Central already functions as a comprehensive command center, accumulating threat telemetry from endpoints, cloud services, identities, and email. With this latest integration, it also becomes the authoritative control point for Microsoft 365 backup and recovery. Security teams can now manage backup, monitor for integrity and compromise, and rapidly initiate restores—all from the same interface they use to triage threats.
Key data types protected at launch include:

• Exchange mailboxes
• OneDrive files
• SharePoint sites and content
• Microsoft Teams channels and artifacts

The direct embedding of these capabilities eliminates the “swivel-chair” effect—teams no longer need to pivot between disparate dashboards, risking delays and loss of context when every second matters.

Streamlining the Incident Response Workflow​

Unlike siloed backup solutions, Sophos M365 Backup and Recovery Powered by Rubrik is designed to fit seamlessly into existing MDR and XDR workflows. Detection and investigation can trigger recovery actions directly, with full event correlation from breach to remediation. For example, if threat telemetry flags the compromise of sensitive SharePoint folders, security operations can swiftly revert to a clean point-in-time copy—without disrupting investigations or relying on manual handoffs between teams.
Features at launch include:

• Single Sign-On (SSO) for smooth user experience and secure access
• Integrated dashboard reporting for unified backup and security visibility
• Full alert ingestion from Rubrik into Sophos MDR/XDR consoles
• Verification of backup integrity against ongoing threat activity

Sophos has signaled that even deeper recovery automation and more granular controls are on the roadmap, suggesting that the offering will mature rapidly in response to real-world operational needs.

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Security and Technical Strengths​

Air-Gapped Resilience and WORM Immutability​

Modern attackers are well aware that backup systems often serve as the last line of defense. Direct assaults on backup repositories—especially inside cloud SaaS platforms like Microsoft 365—have become a favored tactic among advanced threat groups. Here, the Rubrik architecture distinguishes itself with robust design principles:

• Isolated, air-gapped storage: Backups are stored in environments logically and physically isolated from production tenants, blocking lateral movement even if Microsoft 365 or Entra ID are compromised.
• Write-Once, Read-Many (WORM) policies: Once backup data is written, it is immutable; even privileged administrators or attackers with elevated credentials cannot alter or delete it before retention periods expire.
• Intelligent data lock and multifactor authentication: Access controls are enforced at every step, reducing the risk of privilege escalation or insider abuse.

Customer-Controlled Encryption and RBAC​

In a bid to allay concerns over third-party access, Rubrik gives customers exclusive ownership of encryption keys, rendering even the backup vendor itself incapable of reading or restoring the data without explicit authorization. Combined with fine-grained role-based access controls (RBAC), organizations can enforce separation of duties and restrict access to only those personnel who require it.

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Operational Simplicity and Automation​

Recovery Orchestration Without Added Complexity​

Sophos and Rubrik’s joint approach is not to replace or disrupt established incident response. Instead, they have focused on making recovery as operationally accessible as detection and prevention. The tight integration into Sophos Central means that:

• Security analysts can execute restores without leaving their monitoring environment
• The correlation of detection, response, and recovery events is retained from start to finish
• Opportunities for automated recovery (such as auto-restoring data after confirmed malicious deletion) are expanded, enabling response at machine speed

This approach dramatically reduces cognitive load and speeds time-to-recovery when it matters most.

Unified Visibility and Posture Management​

By unifying both backup status and threat detection in a single interface, security teams maintain continuous oversight of their organization’s defensive posture. Verification of backup integrity against threat intelligence streams becomes routine—if a threat actor attempts to corrupt, delete, or exfiltrate data, teams can quickly ascertain the last known-good state and revert as needed.

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Critical Analysis: Strengths, Opportunities, and Risks​

Notable Strengths​

• Seamless Workflow Integration: Direct embedding into Sophos Central and MDR consoles enables security teams to remain within their established operational environment, minimizing friction and accelerating response.
• Zero Trust and Least Privilege Principles: Rubrik’s WORM, encryption key management, and RBAC controls embody industry best practices, reducing the risk of backup compromise.
• Comprehensive Coverage: The inclusion of all critical Microsoft 365 apps at launch demonstrates a holistic approach—organizations are not left to stitch together separate backup solutions for SharePoint, Exchange, OneDrive, and Teams.
• Futureproofing and Extensibility: The roadmap for deeper automation and advanced workflow controls presents a clear path for scaling and adapting as threats evolve.

Potential Risks and Limitations​

• Vendor Lock-In Concerns: Deep integration with both Sophos and Rubrik may challenge organizations who wish to maintain greater flexibility or avoid single-vendor dependency for both security and resilience.
• Initial Feature Gaps: At launch, features such as granular recovery workflows and advanced controls are planned but not yet available. Customers seeking fine-tuned orchestration may need to wait or supplement with additional tools.
• Reliance on Sophos Ecosystem: Organizations not already invested in Sophos MDR/XDR or Central may find adoption less attractive, given the integration-centric nature of the solution.
• Evolving Attack Techniques: While air-gapped and WORM-protected backups represent state-of-the-art resilience, adversaries will inevitably seek to discover new vectors; constant vigilance and ongoing platform evolution are required.

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Use Cases: Where the Solution Shines​

Mid-Market Security Operations​

Organizations lacking large, dedicated security operations centers often struggle to balance detection, response, and recovery across sprawling cloud environments. The new Sophos-Rubrik collaboration gives these teams an accessible, unified toolset, leveling the playing field with enterprise-class resilience.

Regulated Industries​

Financial services, healthcare, and other regulated sectors face stringent mandates for data protection, retention, and recoverability. With immutable backups, customer-held encryption keys, and robust audit trails, the solution supports compliance without sacrificing agility.

Ransomware and Business Email Compromise​

In incidents where ransomware disables user access or mass-deletes cloud data, rapid and certainty in recovery are essential. The integration enables security teams to identify the blast radius of an attack, isolate and restore corrupted or deleted files, and do so with complete alignment to ongoing incident response—reducing downtime, data loss, and exposure.

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The Road Ahead: Channel and Community Impact​

Sophos M365 Backup and Recovery Powered by Rubrik is imminently available through Sophos’ global channel partner ecosystem. The move signifies a broader industry trend toward converged security and backup platforms, where detection and recovery are explicitly linked. This will likely drive further innovation, compelling competitors to re-examine the silos that have persisted between cybersecurity and operational resilience.
Moreover, the partnership underscores a growing recognition: data recovery is not simply an afterthought, but an operational imperative that must be as dynamic and intelligent as threat detection itself.

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Conclusion: Bridging the Gap between Defense and Recovery​

Sophos and Rubrik have identified and closed a persistent gap in the Microsoft 365 security landscape—the disconnect between rapid threat detection and assured, seamless recovery. By delivering integrated backup and restoration capabilities directly into the daily workflows of MDR and XDR teams, they redefine what it means to be resilient in the age of cloud-first, attacker-driven risk.
For organizations that depend on Microsoft 365, this development moves business continuity from static checklist to living, operational capability. The outcome is not just improved M365 backup security, but fundamentally stronger and faster incident response—empowering defenders to take control in the face of evolving threats. As attackers adapt their tactics, solutions that tightly weave detection, analysis, and recovery will define the next era of enterprise security.

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Source: MSSP Alert Sophos and Rubrik Launch Integrated Microsoft 365 Backup and Recovery for MDR Customers