diff --git a/public/components/confirm_modal/confirm_modal.js b/public/components/confirm_modal/confirm_modal.js
index 8ceebc9b4e1ef1..ed46b1320b460a 100644
--- a/public/components/confirm_modal/confirm_modal.js
+++ b/public/components/confirm_modal/confirm_modal.js
@@ -30,6 +30,7 @@ export const ConfirmModal = props => {
       show
       className={`canvas__confirm_modal ${className || ''}`}
       onHide={cancel}
+      backdrop="static"
       aria-labelledby="confirm-modal-title"
     >
       <Modal.Header>
diff --git a/public/style/hackery.less b/public/style/hackery.less
index 3064f8dc4f7c57..b89cd1f784b0d5 100644
--- a/public/style/hackery.less
+++ b/public/style/hackery.less
@@ -56,3 +56,15 @@ button:focus {
 .popover {
   max-width: 2000px !important; // React-Bootstrap popovers are hardcoded to 276px;
 }
+
+// fix modal focus index, set to bootstrap values
+// broken upstream by focus mixin: https://github.com/elastic/kibana/blob/d77cc5676bc534c1d1de1f160e213bd66fb8a78c/packages/kbn-ui-framework/src/global_styling/reset/_reset.scss
+[role="dialog"] {
+  .modal-backdrop {
+    z-index: 1040;
+  }
+
+  .modal {
+    z-index: 1050;
+  }
+}