Welcome to My Blog
An introduction to this blog and what to expect: security research, cloud infrastructure notes, and practical lessons from the field.
Akshay Kanamarlapudi
Security Engineer | Cloud Security | Infrastructure Engineering | Systems Administration
Behind every "it just works" is someone who made sure it couldn't be broken. That's usually me.
I secure cloud environments, endpoints, and networks for a living, and occasionally explain to people why "just disable the firewall" is not a fix.
View Work â$ whoami
it_security_engineer, occasional network-switch-whisperer
$ uptime --no-incidents
still counting. don't jinx it.
$ cat todo.txt
finish CKS, CISSP # before Dec 31, allegedly
$
About
I'm a security engineer. I secure cloud and enterprise environments for a living, AWS, Azure, endpoints, identity, all of it.
Right now I'm the sole IT security engineer for a university research department. I run MDM (Intune, Jamf), manage the Zaratan HPC cluster, and own the network.
Before that, I was the first security hire at a startup. Built the program from scratch, got it to SOC 2, and hardened its AWS footprint top to bottom.
I hold AWS Solutions Architect Associate, Azure Security Engineer Associate (AZ-500), and the Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA). CKS and CISSP are next.
I've worked solo as a one-person IT/security shop, inside a large enterprise team at LTIMindtree, and as the first security hire at a startup. Different team sizes, different industries, same result: I figure out the environment and get to work.
One-Person IT/Security Shop
Built the department's MDM program (Intune + Jamf) from zero, plus the policies nobody wants to write.
Zaratan HPC Admin
Keeps a university compute cluster's workloads, projects, and users from setting themselves on fire.
First Security Hire, AquilaTest
Went from "we have no security program" to SOC 2 evidence, pentest, and phishing test, solo.
Comfortable Anywhere
Solo shop, enterprise team, startup, university research dept. Different setups, same ability to adapt and deliver.
Currently Grinding
CKA earned. CKS and CISSP in progress, studied for on evenings and weekends.
Experience
IT Security Engineer
Institute of Physical Science and Technology, UMD- Serve as the sole IT security engineer for the department, designing and deploying a unified mobile device management (MDM) program using Microsoft Intune and Jamf from the ground up to manage and secure all department endpoints.
- Author and maintain department-wide security policies, SLAs, and data retention standards spanning the full device and account lifecycle, from onboarding through offboarding.
- Administer the department's Zaratan high-performance computing (HPC) cluster, managing compute workloads, project allocations, and user account provisioning.
- Plan and execute migrations of legacy department websites to modernized platforms, building and hosting new infrastructure on updated servers.
- Own network infrastructure operations for the department, including switch configuration and maintenance.
> cat umd_role.md
Cloud Security Engineer
AquilaTest Inc.- Served as the company's first dedicated security hire, establishing its security program and practices from the ground up.
- Directed SOC 2 evidence collection and coordinated with an external audit contractor to achieve SOC 2 compliance.
- Led a comprehensive hardening initiative across the company's AWS infrastructure, addressing security gaps in every deployed service.
- Conducted a systematic, service-by-service audit of AWS infrastructure, documenting configurations, right-sizing resources, and decommissioning unused services to reduce attack surface and cost.
- Migrated the company's entire infrastructure to Docker and Kubernetes, containerizing services previously run on manually managed instances.
- Conducted an internal penetration test to identify and remediate exploitable vulnerabilities.
- Designed and executed a company-wide phishing simulation to assess and improve employee security awareness.
> cat aquilatest_role.md
Senior Cloud Engineer
LTIMindtree- Led cloud engineering work for Canadian insurance clients, with a focus on securing production business platforms built on Microsoft Power Platform.
- Designed and enforced Azure Policy definitions across client subscriptions, standardizing governance and compliance controls at scale.
- Deployed and tuned Microsoft Defender across client environments for continuous threat detection and monitoring.
- Identified and remediated Azure misconfigurations using AZ-500 security engineering principles, reducing client exposure to common attack vectors.
- Partnered directly with client security and compliance teams to translate audit and regulatory requirements into enforceable Azure controls.
> cat ltimindtree_role.md
Projects
SOC 2 Evidence Automation Tool
Collects technical evidence from 27 mocked cloud and SaaS sources (AWS, Azure, GCP, Okta, GitHub, MDM/Intune, Jamf, Kandji, CrowdStrike, Slack, M365, and more), maps it against 6 frameworks (SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 42001 AI Management, HIPAA, PCI DSS, NIST CSF 2.0) via a control crosswalk, and generates an HTML/JSON/PDF gap report plus an auditor-style evidence bundle. Flask dashboard supports running scans, comparing results across runs, and viewing the cross-framework crosswalk.
Python
Flask
SOC 2
ISO 27001
ISO 42001
View on GitHub â
AI-Powered AWS Security Scanner
Scans AWS environments against CIS AWS Foundations Benchmark controls (5 checks implemented, with a broader roadmap) and supports two modes: automated boto3 checks or AI-assisted (OpenAI/Anthropic) analysis that generates plain-English risk explanations, remediation steps, and compliance mapping to SOC 2, NIST CSF, HIPAA, and PCI DSS. Produces audit-ready HTML reports.
Python
boto3
OpenAI/Anthropic
Jinja2
View on GitHub â
Security Monitoring & Automation
Deployed Splunk SIEM integrated with Windows Event Forwarding and Sysmon. Developed PowerShell scripts for automated log collection and incident response playbooks, reducing mean-time-to-detect by 60% across test environment.
Splunk
Sysmon
PowerShell
WEF
Certifications
Certified Kubernetes Administrator (CKA)
CNCF | Oct 2026
Junior Penetration Tester (eJPT)
INE Security | Nov 2024
CompTIA Network+
CompTIA | Aug 2024
AWS Solutions Architect Associate
SAA-C03 | Jul 2024
CompTIA Security+
CompTIA | May 2024
Azure Security Engineer Associate
AZ-500 | Jun 2022
Azure Fundamentals
AZ-900 | Oct 2021
In Progress (Target: End of Year)
Certified Kubernetes Security Specialist (CKS)
CNCF | In Progress
CISSP
ISC2 | In Progress
Additional Certifications
Power Platform Developer Associate
Microsoft
Power Platform Functional Consultant Associate
Microsoft
Power Platform App Maker Associate
Microsoft
Power Platform Fundamentals
Microsoft
Dynamics 365 Fundamentals (CRM)
Microsoft
Operating Systems and You: Becoming a Power User
Google | Coursera
Technical Support Fundamentals
Google | Coursera
Interests
Outside of security and cloud engineering work.
Home Lab & Self-Hosting
Designing, building, and maintaining a home lab environment for self-hosted services and infrastructure experimentation.
Gaming
AAA open-world titles as a way to unwind outside of work.
Fitness
Running, weight training, and karate, with a longer-term goal of training in MMA.
Travel
Have visited 24 U.S. states to date, with a goal of visiting all 50 by the end of summer 2027.
Indoor Gardening
Growing houseplants and experimenting with indoor setups, a much slower feedback loop than production infrastructure.
Continuous Learning
Staying current on the industry through technical papers, video content, and short-form media covering emerging security and infrastructure topics.
Blog
Security research, cloud infrastructure notes, and lessons from the field.
More posts coming soon, covering cloud security research, infrastructure engineering, and lessons from the field.
Contact
I'm a security engineer open to conversations about cloud security, infrastructure engineering, or roles where someone needs to build the security program from scratch (again).