Kavya Sri Punna

After several years as a Technical Support Engineer, my growing passion for cybersecurity led me to pursue a Master’s degree in Information Assurance & Cybersecurity. During my program, I gained hands-on experience through corporate internships focusing on Cloud Security, IAM, and SOC operations. I also served as a Teaching Assistant, conducting labs on security tools like Nmap, Burp Suite, and Metasploit, and earned the CompTIA Security+ certification.

Leveraging my technical support background and Master’s in Information Assurance & Cybersecurity, I am focused on transitioning into cybersecurity with particular interest in Cloud Security and AI Security. Currently building projects involving Suricata IDS and AWS secure architecture, I aim to contribute to organizations seeking dedicated professionals who can bridge technical expertise with evolving security challenges in cloud and AI environments.

Tools & Technologies

🛡️ Security & Monitoring

☁️ Cloud & IAM

⚙️ Automation & Scripting

📚 Frameworks & Standards

🌐 Networking & Systems

🔐 Cryptography & Advanced Topics

Certifications

Recognitions & Achievements

Cybersecurity Research Recognition
Outstanding Contribution as Graduate Teaching Assistant
B-Sides Rochester Volunteer (2024)

Projects

• IDS–SIEM Integration: Suricata + Splunk:
  Hands-on SOC lab simulating real-world attacks (Log4j, WarmCookie) with Suricata IDS log ingestion into Splunk SIEM, dashboards, alerts, and incident response workflow.

• Honey Trap GCP (In Progress):
  Deployed and automated the T-Pot honeypot framework on Google Cloud using Terraform (IaC) to capture brute-force, malware, and reconnaissance attacks. Integrated dashboards for real-time monitoring of threat activity and malicious IP trends.

• IdentiFile – Python File Format Detection Library:
  Co-developed an open-source Python library for detecting and classifying file formats using magic bytes, MIME types, and signatures. Published with documentation and modular design to support integration into security workflows.

• 2-Tier AWS Secure Architecture (Planned):
  Designing and deploying a highly available 2-tier web architecture on AWS using Terraform. The setup will include a public web tier behind an Application Load Balancer, a private database tier, and security controls such as IAM, NACLs, Security Groups, and monitoring with CloudWatch and VPC Flow Logs. Future plans include integrating logging, encryption, and compliance-aligned policies to showcase cloud security best practices.