Manikandan S
Security engineer who ships production infra, not just writeups.
Role Track
DFIR / SOC / Security Engineering
Current Focus
Production-grade systems and infra hardening
Availability
Open to GCC and product security teams
CGPA · 9.09
I held near-top-of-cohort academics while running production infrastructure serving 1,500 users. Proof I can carry rigorous CS fundamentals and ship real systems at the same time, not trade one for the other.
Live Users · 1,500+
These aren't demo accounts or a lab sandbox. Every security decision I made was load-bearing for 1,500 real people whose data and coursework depended on it. That's the kind of consequence most students don't touch until their first job.
Uptime · 99.5%
Standing a system up is easy; keeping it live through patches, incidents, and 3 a.m. failures is sustained ownership. Roughly two days of total downtime across the whole run, with zero security incidents.
Certifications · 3
I validate my skills against external standards, not just self-assessment. The forensics focus (DFEv1) means I can investigate incidents after the fact, not only prevent them. That's the DFIR half of the SOC-to-DFIR pipeline.
Final-year B.Tech CSE student at VIT Chennai, specializing in cybersecurity. I architect production systems that don't just function they resist.
I've spent the last two years operating at the boundary between security and infrastructure engineering. My work on VISTA a live production system serving 1,500+ users taught me that real security isn't a checklist; it's a mindset baked into every architectural decision.
From SSH key-only authentication and IP whitelisting to automated threat monitoring and disaster recovery, I build systems that assume they're under attack and prove otherwise.
I'm drawn to environments where security is a first-class engineering concern GCCs, product companies, and security teams that treat infrastructure as a battleground, not a utility.
9.09 / 10
Digital Forensics Essentials v1 (DFEv1)
EC-Council
Production Security & Infrastructure Engineer
VIT Chennai (VISTA)
Architected and maintained hardened production infrastructure for VISTA, a capstone project management system serving 1,500+ active users.
Implemented SSH key-only authentication, IP whitelisting, and encrypted communications achieving zero security incidents over 12+ months of live operation.
Built Python-based security automation for real-time threat monitoring, automated backups, and disaster recovery systems.
Maintained 99.5% uptime through proactive patch management and system hardening.
Cybersecurity Intern
Genzeon
Conducted penetration testing and vulnerability assessments on production web applications, delivering actionable remediation reports.
Configured Azure Sentinel SIEM with custom analytics rules for real-time threat detection across cloud infrastructure.
Tuned CrowdStrike EDR policy so authorized PHP test payloads stopped being quarantined mid-engagement scoping the exception to the security team and gating file execution behind senior approval rather than disabling the control.
VISTA
Production security ownership of a live 1,500+ user system
VISTA is VIT Chennai's capstone project management platform but treating it as just another academic project misses the point. What matters is that I owned the entire security and infrastructure posture of a live system serving over 1,500 active users for over a year.
This wasn't a lab exercise. Every decision had real consequences: a misconfigured firewall meant students couldn't submit work; a vulnerability meant their data was exposed. That pressure shaped every choice I made.
Secure IoT Framework
Novel IoT initialization and encryption framework using acoustic signals and criticality-based optimization for resource-constrained devices.
Published at 16th ICCCNT 2025 uses ambient acoustic signals as a side-channel for key exchange.
Published at 16th ICCCNT 2025 uses ambient acoustic signals as a side-channel for key exchange.
Secure IoT Initialization and Encryption Framework Using Acoustic Signals and Criticality-Based Optimization