Aashay Wadkar

As part of CMU Human Computer Interaction's programs, this on-campus remote opportunity allowed me to tutor smart mind and support them in their journey to become stars of the next generation.

• Gained hands-on expertise with NGFW and Panorama across large-scale cloud deployments with 100+ instances, HA clusters, and VMSS auto-scaling, simulating enterprise-grade security infrastructures • Built and productionized VMSS FW delicensing workflow in Panorama’s Azure Plugin (Python); now in QA testing and rollout stage, projected to eliminate manual effort and improve lifecycle response time by 180x for 10+ enterprise customers • Implemented AI agent telemetry system in GCP for Prisma AIRS (SCM), collecting invocation metrics and visualizing misconfigurations, latency bottlenecks, and idle resources using generative AI dashboards for SecOps teams • Built a threat-driven AI Agentic pipeline for honeypot orchestration, integrating attacker IoC feedback to redeploy deception assets dynamically across GCP for PANW Global Hackathon 2025 • Simulated enterprise network breach in red-team CTF; performed recon, privilege escalation, and SQLi to compromise databases, discovering 37/41 vulnerabilities through coordinated exploitation and lateral movement tactics

• Spearheaded research on HashiCorp Vault on secure storage and usage of private keys, delivered live client training sessions • HashiCorp research achieved enhancement of private key management for 13 + clients within a two-month period through multiple training sessions, contributing to increased security, business and client satisfaction • Automation of object-oriented data transfer across EVM blockchains by implementing a generic handler using ChainBridge protocol, attaining synchronization and reducing inter-blockchain latency by 80% • Adhered to established SDLC timelines throughout development phases with 95% timely deliverables • Directed process for deploying web services in dockerized Nginx servers with SSL/TLS configurations. Reduced setup times to instantaneous deployment using make commands, utilized by 20+ POC

• Engineered Ethereum Smart Contracts to represent cryptocurrency-based equity within a legacy Web 2.0 system, enhancing product security for over 50,000 users through immutability and non-repudiation while addressing Web3.0 vulnerabilities

• Developed a System Monitoring Utility for Unix in C++, surveilling CPU, RAM, process, disk, and network usage using kernel APIs • Parsed proc and sys file systems, developed formulas to compute usage statistics in human-readable format, leading to hands-on understanding of the operating system’s internal workings

Coursework : Introduction to Computer Systems, Hacking and Offensive Security, Computer Networks (SCS), Security in Network Systems, Introduction to Software Reverse Engineering, Host-based Forensics

Bachelor's Degree Project - The journey of the Criminal Justice System of India towards Blockchain with Cryptography • Constructed a two-tier hybrid blockchain model for India's Criminal Justice system, centered around a case object represented through various case document transactions. • Researched the legal system, with consultations from lawyers to ensure the model requires no changes in laws enforced by the Indian Penal Code & Indian Evidence Act. • Implemented a new Proof of Authority consensus algorithm, ARA-PoA, which ensures deterministic pseudo-random winner declaration. • Proposed model introduces decentralization, removing single point of failure problem, increases transparency between the victim/accused and case files because of multi-signature scheme, and improves traceability and accountability as transactions require digital signatures. Also, the model ensures the immutability of the cases through hash functions, which is one of the major concerns of the current model.