Mehul Nikumbh

Served as first-line contact during enterprise phishing drills across a 47,000-employee environment, triaging roughly 12 user-reported emails per campaign cycle, classifying real threats against simulations. Executed end-to-end phishing simulation campaigns in Proofpoint across multiple departments over a 12-week program, customizing templates with AI-generated polymorphic variants to test department-specific susceptibility. Monitored corporate email activity through GRIP to detect policy violations and unauthorized access, flagging suspicious events and guiding affected employees through secure access revocation procedures.

Cybersecurity Intern at THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY (2025-06 – 2025-08)

• Served as first-line contact during enterprise phishing drills across a 47,000-employee environment, triaging roughly 12 user-reported emails per campaign cycle, classifying real threats against simulations.
• Executed end-to-end phishing simulation campaigns in Proofpoint across multiple departments over a 12-week program, customizing templates with AI-generated polymorphic variants to test department-specific susceptibility.
• Monitored corporate email activity through GRIP to detect policy violations and unauthorized access, flagging suspicious events and guiding affected employees through secure access revocation procedures.
• Generated KRIs from click-through trends, report rates, and response gaps, feeding campaign findings back into awareness targeting and follow-up training rather than reporting metrics in isolation.
• Tested firewall, SIEM, and endpoint configurations against CIS Benchmarks and internal baselines, cataloging 12+ control gaps with severity ratings, risk owners, and remediation timelines.

Security Analyst at VESIT (UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI) (2023-05 – 2024-08)

• Operated Wazuh SIEM and Windows Event Logs across 200+ endpoints to collect and validate control evidence, including access reports, configuration exports, and policy documents, sustaining quarterly audit readiness.
• Tested user access controls across privileged access, provisioning and de-provisioning, and terminated-user review, documenting exceptions and tracking them to closure with named owners.
• Performed security risk assessments and control gap reviews across applications, systems, and business processes mapped to NIST CSF, ISO 27001, and CIS Controls, documenting findings with risk ratings and owners.
• Evaluated vulnerability findings from OpenVAS and Nmap, validating results against CIS Benchmarks and prioritizing remediation follow-up by severity and asset exposure.

Security Operations Analyst at TELENETWORKS TECHNOLOGIES (2022-12 – 2023-05)

• Investigated 5+ security incidents by correlating evidence across Windows Event Viewer and network-monitoring data, producing root-cause summaries, severity timelines, and control observations for handoff.
• Reviewed baseline configurations for 25+ systems against ITGC and CIS/NIST hardening standards, cataloging 8 deviations with risk impact, assigned owners, and target remediation dates.
• Maintained remediation trackers for configuration anomalies, open findings, reducing unresolved findings by 35%.

M.S. in Information Systems (Cybersecurity) – CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, LONG BEACH (2024-08 – 2026-05)

B.E. in Electronics (Honors: Cybersecurity) – UNIVERSITY OF MUMBAI (2020-02 – 2024-05)