Case Studies
Moda Experts Builds a Proactive, Multi-Layered Cyber Defence with Dropsuite
- Industry: Cybersecurity, IT Strategy
- Founded: 2007
- Website: modaexperts.com
Moda Experts Takes a Proactive Approach to Expanded Backup
Protection with Dropsuite
When a healthcare client accidentally deleted a critical Microsoft Entra ID security group, it could have meant two weeks of disruption, compliance risk, and serious operational headaches. Instead, their IT consultant had just implemented Dropsuite Entra Backup, and the issue was resolved in under 30 minutes.
That kind of recovery wasn’t luck. It was the result of intentional planning by Moda Experts, an Ohio-based team of cybersecurity advisors who take a hands-on, proactive approach to protecting their clients. Founded by Phani Yenugu in 2007, Moda Experts helps organizations reduce cyber risks, ensure compliance, and strengthen their IT environments through strategic migrations, breach remediation, licensing optimization, and now, resilient identity protection.
Moving Beyond Simple Backups
Yenugu realized early on the need for comprehensive backup solutions. Moda Experts, with a focus on organizational security, specializes in security mitigations, breaches, and certifications. But they also help organizations rein in IT costs, optimize tech portfolios, and manage licensing. This holistic approach, combined with a deep understanding of emerging threats, led them to spot a fundamental weak point in many organizations’ security: a lack of solid backup for Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure Active Directory).
“Being in technology, I know how critical backup is,” Yenugu emphasizes. While those traditional backups can handle files and emails, the tricky configurations and policies inside Entra ID — the very things that control access to applications, devices, and data — were overlooked. A single accidental deletion or incorrect setting in Entra ID can have widespread effects, causing significant disruption, security gaps, and extended downtime.
Moda Experts’ clients represent primarily small and medium businesses (SMBs), for whom such disruptions can be especially damaging. Dropsuite Entra Backup, with its combination of price, features, functionality, and ease of use, offered an ideal solution to address this urgent need to keep end users up and running.
A Real-World Test: Fast Recovery from a Critical Deletion
The true worth of Entra Backup became clear during a recent incident. A Moda Experts healthcare client, one of the first to adopt the solution, accidentally deleted an important security group. This client operates entirely in the cloud and remotely, so the security group was tied to Microsoft Intune to control their laptop devices and the organization’s security policies.
The deleted group would have taken at least two weeks’ worth of work to recreate, Yenugu recalls, leading to extended downtime and operational issues. Beyond the inconvenience, it created a major security risk, putting compliance requirements in jeopardy and causing significant stress for the client.
But thanks to Dropsuite Entra Backup, what could have been a multi-week nightmare was solved in less than 30 minutes. Moda Experts provided the client a copy of the recent Entra Backup taken so they could perform the restoration themselves. This recovery avoided lengthy downtime, prevented security exposures, and helped keep them compliant.
“We can showcase to HITRUST [Health Information Trust Alliance] that we have this product and the ability to quickly recover from it,” Yenugu explains, underscoring how the solution helps strengthen compliance. This incident reinforced Moda Experts’ confidence in Entra Backup, leading them to actively recommend it to other clients.
Proactive Security and Strategic Positioning
Moda Experts takes a highly proactive approach to cybersecurity, and solutions like this help support it. Yenugu sees Entra Backup as not just a recovery tool but a mechanism for preemptive security.
“We use this product to compare and find changes and do alerting,” he explains. This capability helps spot potential issues and warn customers before a breach hits, ultimately building a tougher, more secure environment.
For Moda Experts, Entra Backup is a core piece of their bundled security services rather than a standalone offering. Yenugu says it helps give the control back to their clients, which aligns well with their bigger strategy of positioning themselves as trusted security advisors. Their engagements center on custom scoping for real risk, meaning they don’t just run scans. Instead, they conduct risk-focused scoping across many areas: email, network, web, mobile, Internet of Things (IoT), and even human elements, making sure everything aligns with critical business assets.
Their 360° security reviews go beyond basic scans, delivering actionable risk identification and remediation roadmaps with clear, prioritized risk findings and solid remediation strategies. Entra Backup seamlessly integrates into this framework to help enable rapid recovery and boost overall security resilience.
Comprehensive Protection: Email, M365, and Beyond
The importance of email and Microsoft 365 (M365) backup in Moda Experts’ service offerings has steadily climbed over the years. Yenugu estimates that over half of all security incidents start with email, making robust email recovery and filtering tools imperative. Dropsuite, with its competitive pricing, makes these powerful tools accessible even for smaller companies that are often more vulnerable to cyberattacks.
The widespread shift to cloud-based solutions has quickly highlighted the need for comprehensive backup. As organizations increasingly depend on Microsoft Entra ID for identity and access management, the risks tied to its misconfiguration or identity-based attacks skyrocket. Moda Experts uses Dropsuite not only for M365 data but also for Entra ID objects, policies, and configurations.
The value of proactively backing up Entra ID configurations and policies is huge for Moda Experts and their clients, touching several key areas:
- Compliance: Many industry regulations and certifications, like HIPAA or ISO 27001, demand strong data retention and recovery capabilities. Entra Backup helps organizations meet these strict compliance requirements, providing an auditable trail of recovery efforts. “If a CFO or director leaves, you need to keep files for a long time,” Yenugu explains, highlighting the long-term record-keeping aspect of compliance.
- Time and Cost Savings: As the healthcare client incident showed, quickly recovering from Entra ID issues can directly translate into savings in both time and expenses. It minimizes the downtime and slashes the resources needed for manual fixes.
- Increased Client Confidence: The ability to swiftly restore critical configurations provides reassurance for the client that security incidents and operational disruptions won’t lead to extended downtime.
- Cybersecurity Certifications: Moda Experts actively recommends Entra Backup as a vital component of the cybersecurity certification process, one that demonstrates an organization’s proactive stance on data protection and recovery.
A Core Product for the Future
Moda Experts sees Entra Backup as a fundamental cornerstone of their service portfolio. Yenugu offers it as a core product, part of a larger tech bundle. He points out that customers rarely push back on including this solution and recognize its inherent value.
Microsoft doesn’t provide any type of comparable recovery option for deleted Entra ID policies or permissions, as the Microsoft Learn site highlights:
“Unintended deletions and misconfigurations will happen to your tenant. To minimize the impact of these unintended events, you must prepare for their occurrence … Recoverability helps your organization be more resilient.”
Source: Recoverability best practices in Microsoft Entra ID – Microsoft Entra | Microsoft Learn
“Third-party solutions for backups are much more powerful,” Yenugu says. He has found that the capabilities of dedicated backup solutions stand out compared to what you might get natively from cloud providers, which can be quite limited.
“Backup is the key for any organization to protect themselves,” Yenugu asserts, highlighting the importance of comprehensive backup. Dropsuite’s simplicity, robust capabilities, and competitive pricing mean Moda Experts can easily sell it to virtually all of their customers. They position it as part of a “big holistic picture of security” that begins with email, stretches to applications, and embraces all data policies.
This comprehensive, proactive approach to security and compliance helps Moda Experts stand out through:
- Actionable Risk Identification & Strategies: Using 360° security reviews, they prioritize risk findings with remediation strategies for business and compliance.
- Hybrid Expert Framework Integration: Tools are combined with reconnaissance and exploitation based on OWASP, SANS, and NIST best practices.
- Built-in Remediation & Success Validation: Every penetration test includes remediation assistance and retesting to ensure that fixes work.
- Compliance-Ready Configuration Reviews: System configurations are verified against industry frameworks to prepare clients for audits.
- Strategic IT Cost Containment & Roadmap: Thorough reviews focus on IT spending and usage, inefficiencies, and roadmaps.
A Valued Partnership and Tool
Moda Experts’ partnership with Dropsuite is built on trust and delivers real results. Yenugu especially appreciates the fast and easy restore feature of the backup solution. He has never had to call support for any technical issues and recognizes the competitive price positioning. Overall, the solution has improved their service portfolio, offering even more value to their clients.
Dropsuite Entra Backup is more than just another product in Moda Experts’ portfolio. It has become an essential tool for them to provide truly comprehensive, proactive security solutions — with protection against both accidental oversights and emerging cyber threats targeting identity-based security. Yenugu fully expects to keep leveraging this tool to further enhance their value proposition and solidify their standing as trusted security advisors.
In a world where digital identities and cloud configurations are the new battlegrounds for cyber risk, Entra Backup gives MSPs the strategic advantage they need to protect their clients and ensure business continuity.
Request a free Entra Backup trial or demo today.