ABOUT ME

Hi, I'm Anup Kinkhabwala, and up until May of 2023, I was aspiring to obtain a Cloud Engineer, Cloud Security Engineer, or Cyber Security related role. I accomplished that goal by starting as a Cloud Administrator and am now working as an Information Security Engineer. I am currently focused on gaining hands-on experience and continuing my learning journey related to cloud engineereing. In the past, I have worked on some cloud projects to showcase some of the topics I learned, and wrote about my experiences on my blog. So feel free to visit!

I built this page as part of the A Cloud Guru Resume Challenge - Azure. The entire frontend & backend of this website is hosted on Azure!

Certifications

Professional Scrum Master™ I (PSM I)

Prof Scrum Master

Azure Fundamentals (AZ-900)

Azure Fundamentals

CompTIA Security+ ce Certification

CompTIA Security+

Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals (SC-900)

Security, Compliance, and Identity Fundamentals

Security Operations Analyst Associate (SC-200)

Security Operations Analyst Associate

Azure Security Engineer Associate (AZ-500)

Azure Security Engineer Associate

Azure Administrator Associate (AZ-104)

Azure Administrator Associate

Information Protection and Compliance Administrator Associate (SC-400)

Information Protection and Compliance Administrator Associate

Experience

MSCI Inc.

Information Security Engineer • November 2023 - Present

I transitioned to the MSCI Security Engineering team following the completion of the Burgiss acquisition. After joining the team, I assumed responsibilities centered around working with Purview and Tessian, an AI-based cloud email security tool, to enhance our security posture.

  • Spearheaded initiatives to optimize security policies within cloud-based platforms, including Defender for O365, Tessian, and Purview, by first understanding all policies and working on optimizing them
  • Led an initiative to update and streamline security policies in Tessian, ensuring alignment with industry best practices.
  • Worked on implementing the initial phases of Insider Risk Management in Purview, focusing on the detection and mitigation of potential malicious and inadvertent activities.
  • Identified and addressed areas of improvement in existing policies, enhancing their effectiveness in mitigating security risks.
  • Contributed to the enhancement of the cloud security framework, safeguarding sensitive data and ensuring resilience against emerging threats.

    • Burgiss (acquired by MSCI Inc.)

    Cloud Administrator • May 2023 - November 2023

    After joining Burgiss, I assumed responsibilities centered around working with Purview DLP, Information Protection, Microsoft Sentinel, and SentinelOne, to enhance the organization's security posture. Burgiss was acquired by MSCI in August of 2023 and renamed to MSCI Private Capital Solutions.

  • Utilized Microsoft Purview Security & Compliance tools to design and maintain robust security and compliance measures, including Information Protection and DLP policies, from the ground up
  • Leveraged Microsoft Purview Information Protection (MIP) to effectively protect and classify data by creating and configuring sensitivity labels
  • Spearheaded the creation and testing of DLP policies, leveraging Microsoft Purview Information Protection to prevent unauthorized sharing of highly sensitive information via email.
  • Led the implementation of Proof of Concept (PoC) for Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies, collaborating closely with Microsoft support to resolve implementation challenges.
  • Developed and maintained technical documentation related to DLP changes, ensuring clarity and accessibility for all employees.
  • Demonstrated proficiency in Azure AD (Entra ID) and Active Directory administration, ensuring seamless integration with cloud services.
  • Led initiative in configuring and managing Microsoft Sentinel, strengthening the company's security posture through automation playbooks and rule templates.
  • Assisted in troubleshooting and investigating incidents/alerts from Microsoft Sentinel, fostering a secure and efficient working environment.
  • Acquired foundational knowledge of SentinelOne EDR/XDR platform, to serve as a resource to administer the platform

    • Nuance Communications Inc. (acquired by Microsoft)

    Senior QA Engineer • January 2008 - October 2021

    At Nuance, I held a senior role in managing testing processes, mitigating risks, and ensuring the delivery of high-quality applications across the Healthcare, Insurance, Finance, Banking, and Service industries. I spearheaded efforts to enhance operational efficiency by establishing streamlined processes and creating technical documentation for Digital (Nina/Live Chat) Projects, resulting in a notable improvement in the quality of tested applications.

  • Developed comprehensive test plans and test cases, facilitating effective testing strategies for IVR applications and chatbots within Contact Center Technologies, while adhering to industry standards and best practices.
  • Collaborated within cross-functional teams to develop and test complex enterprise-level IVR systems, SMS, chatbots, and smartphone applications, ensuring seamless integration and functionality.
  • Specialized in testing chatbots and contributing to conversational AI projects, evaluating performance and providing strategic design recommendations throughout the testing lifecycle.
  • Exhibited an intermediate understanding of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques and the Nuance MIX AI tooling platform
  • Reduced the probability of risk/threat by carrying out security and vulnerability testing for IVR and Web Applications by checking PII suppression.
  • Served as the QA Lead for significant initiatives, including the successful deployment of the first enterprise NLU Nuance MIX project in May 2020. Because of the knowledge I gained, I gave presentations to educate the global QA team members on MIX processes and best practices.
  • Led the QA team involved in the successful launch of one of the first 2-way SMS Virtual Agent (VA) and Live Chat application in November 2020. The launch included new platform releases from both Nuance Digital Engagement Platform (NDEP) and Outbound Proactive Engagement Platform (PEP) to provide asynchronous SMS 2-way messaging.

    • Education

    Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering

    NJIT (Newark,NJ)

    Master of Science in Internet Engineering

    NJIT (Newark, NJ)

    Home Lab Projects

    A Cloud Guru Resume Challenge - Azure

    Blog | Github |   May 2022 - June 2022

    The Cloud Resume Challenge is a resume project, which helps build and demonstrate skills fundamental to pursuing a career as a cloud engineer. It helped me gain hands-on experience with Azure cloud and incorporated many of the skills that cloud engineers use in their daily job.

  • Created website using a template and modified HTML and CSS code to optimize the site
  • Used Azure Functions to make a serverless API with a HTTP trigger
  • Configured Azure ComosDB to store the visitor counter
  • Used Javascript to create the webpage visitor counter
  • Deployed the static website to Azure storage
  • Enabled HTTPS and custom domain support by pointing my custom domain to the static website by using Azure CDN
  • Configured a CI/CD Pipeline with GitHub Actions to automate deployment

    • Honeypot Virtual Machine with Azure Sentinel

    Blog | Github |   June 2022

    This project was performed to setup Azure Sentinel (SIEM) and connect it to a virtual machine, which is operating as a honeypot. The honeypot was set up to observed live attacks from around the world. Finally, I used custom PowerShell script to look up the attackers Geolocation information and plot it on the Azure Sentinel Map.

  • Used custom Powershell script to extract metadata from Windows Event Viewer to be forwarded to a third party API in order to obtain geolocation data
  • Configured Log Analytics Workspace in Azure to ingest custom logs containing geographic information (latitude, longitude, state/province, and country)
  • Configured Custom Fields in Log Analytics Workspace with the intent of mapping geo data in Azure Sentinel
  • Configured Microsoft Sentinel (cloud SIEM) workbook to display global attack data (RDP brute force) on world map according to physical location and magnitude of attacks

    • Gatsby Blog Site

    Blog | Github |   June 2022

    This project was performed to setup a site where I can talk about my experiences with my cloud projects. I used Gatsby to create a blog site and then deployed and configured a static web site using Azure Static Web Apps.

  • Used Gatsby to create a blog site
  • Deployed and configured a static web site using Azure Static Web Apps
  • Learned about the Markdown language to write my blog posts
  • Configured a custom subdomain using NameCheap registrar DNS settings

    • Contact Me