Joshua Piesta

Multi-certified cybersecurity professional with hands-on experience spanning defensive monitoring (SOC) and offensive exploitation (penetration testing). Proven track record in web application and API security testing, vulnerability assessment, and threat triage across enterprise environments. Skilled at translating technical risk into clear, actionable guidance for cross-functional engineering teams, with a strong foundation in the OWASP Top 10, SIEM analysis, and incident response.

Penetration Tester (Cybersecurity Analyst) at Optum (UnitedHealth Group) (2025-09 – Present)

• Executed manual and automated penetration testing and retesting across corporate web applications and API architectures, eliminating structural vulnerabilities prior to deployment
• Analyzed and exploited complex attack vectors, mapping discovered risks to OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities and defensive baselines to strengthen application security posture
• Authored technical, evidence-backed penetration testing reports with actionable Proof-of-Concepts and risk ratings, accelerating engineering remediation workflows
• Drove cross-functional communication with application teams, reducing the remediation timeline for critical security issues
• Participated in high-stakes operational war rooms, resolving high-priority security concerns under time-sensitive conditions
• Completed advanced AI Penetration Testing specialization, expanding capability to secure Large Language Models and containerized AI-driven assets

SOC Analyst (Associate Cybersecurity Analyst) at Optum (UnitedHealth Group) (2023-08 – 2025-09)

• Triaged high-volume security infrastructure alerts, safeguarding enterprise networks and strategic business partners from active threat actors
• Monitored multi-source telemetry including SIEM platforms, firewalls, IDS/IPS, EDR utilities, and honeypots, maintaining continuous visibility across the threat landscape
• Correlated and validated active threat metrics, leading strategic escalations and serving as a critical triage resource during major incident response war rooms
• Conducted continuous threat intelligence research on emerging vulnerabilities and zero-day exploits, delivering technical briefings that hardened team defensive posture

Junior Cybersecurity Analyst at MySource Solutions / Critical Path Security (2023-01 – 2023-07)

• Managed real-time, multi-tenant alert monitoring queues, handling threat triage activities across diverse MSSP client environments
• Identified and escalated critical security anomalies to senior engineers, reducing organizational risk and attacker dwell time for clients
• Drafted client-facing incident briefs detailing threat vectors and remediation guidelines, improving external stakeholder response time

Bachelor of Science in Information Technology – Southwestern University - PHINMA (2018-06 – 2023-04)