Ajith P

Security Engineer with 6+ years of cybersecurity experience across enterprise security engineering and independent consulting, specializing in Vulnerability and Exposure Management (VMDR, CTEM, attack surface reduction), Governance Risk and Compliance (GRC), and Cloud Security across hybrid AWS and Azure environments. Qualys-certified (VMDR, Policy Compliance, Cloud Agents) with CEH and OneTrust Vendor Risk Management Expert credentials. Skilled in risk-based and exploitability-driven prioritization, threat exposure analysis, audit coordination, control validation, risk acceptance, exception management, identity governance, and regulatory compliance with NIST, CIS Controls, and PCI-DSS.

Proven results — reduced critical vulnerability backlog 35% in 90 days across 10,000+ assets, zero major audit findings for 2 consecutive years, 95%+ SLA adherence, and 20% faster remediation. Experienced in third-party risk management, SIEM/SOAR operations, and VAPT (OWASP Top 10).

Independent Security Consultant at Independent (2025-06 – Present)

• Completed hands-on labs across AWS (Security Hub, Inspector) and Azure Defender for Cloud. Earned OneTrust Vendor Risk Management Expert certification and maintain VAPT skills using Burp Suite and OWASP ZAP.
• Built kev-prioritizer, a Python tool that ranks vulnerability scan findings by real-world exploitability using CISA KEV, EPSS, CVSS, and asset criticality (rather than CVSS alone) and outputs a P1–P4 remediation queue (github.com/A342J/kev-prioritizer).
• Built attack-surface-monitor, a Python tool that grades internet-facing assets on TLS, certificate health, and security headers, flags software on the current CISA KEV list, and generates an HTML posture dashboard (github.com/A342J/attack-surface-monitor).
• Published both tools open-source with documentation and unit tests — demonstrating exploitability-driven prioritisation and external attack-surface assessment in working code.

Security Engineer at Wipro Limited (2022-09 – 2025-05)

Vulnerability & Exposure Management, Cloud Security, GRC and Policy Compliance

• Managed end-to-end Vulnerability Management lifecycle across 10,000+ assets in hybrid on-premises and AWS/Azure environments. Reduced critical vulnerability backlog by 35% within 90 days and overall remediation cycle time by 20%.
• Performed exposure-based prioritisation using CVSS scoring, CISA KEV, and threat exposure analysis — reducing attack surface by driving remediation of critical attack paths and high-risk assets across enterprise infrastructure (CTEM approach).
• Monitored CISA KEV advisories and zero-day CVEs. Coordinated remediation with patching, platform, and cloud teams maintaining 95%+ SLA adherence on critical findings.
• Maintained ServiceNow CMDB achieving 98% inventory accuracy across 10,000+ cloud and on-premise assets, improving asset and attack-surface visibility through full lifecycle management.
• Executed CIS Benchmark and NIST-aligned configuration scans using Qualys TotalCloud and Policy Compliance across AWS and Azure. Identified misconfigurations in S3 and security groups and coordinated cloud team remediation.
• Drove GRC audit readiness through continuous compliance monitoring, control testing and validation, and gap assessments. Achieved zero major audit findings for 2 consecutive years aligned with enterprise governance frameworks.
• Maintained enterprise risk registers from identification through remediation and residual risk review. Tracked risk acceptance and security exceptions, and prepared risk and compliance dashboards (Power BI, SharePoint) for management reporting.
• Conducted third-party and vendor risk assessments (TPRM) against defined governance criteria using ServiceNow GRC/IRM and RSA Archer. Escalated high-risk findings to risk owners and maintained risk registers, risk treatment, and exception management records.
• Performed web application and API vulnerability assessments using Qualys WAS, DAST, and Burp Suite — identifying OWASP Top 10 issues including XSS, SQL Injection, CSRF, IDOR, and broken access control.
• Conducted authenticated and unauthenticated scans, performed manual validation to eliminate false positives, and delivered VAPT reports with CVSS-based severity ratings and remediation guidance.

IT Specialist (Contract) at Tata Consultancy Services (2022-05 – 2022-07)

• Supported vulnerability assessment operations — scan configuration, CVSS-based finding triage, and remediation coordination across business units.
• Validated scan results, prioritised critical vulnerabilities, and tracked remediation closure through internal ticketing workflows.

Security Analyst at Wibmo (Enstage Software Pvt Ltd) (2019-09 – 2022-03)

Fintech / Payment Security · PCI-DSS regulated environment

• Performed real-time threat monitoring and alert triage (ArcSight, AlienVault USM), reducing false positive escalations by 25% through threat intelligence enrichment (MXToolbox, AbuseIPDB, IPVOID) and SLA tracking in a PCI-DSS environment.

B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering – Geethanjali Institute of Science & Technology (2015)