About me


"We've got a responsibility to live up to the legacy of those who came before us by doing all that we can help those came after us." - Michelle Obama

I am a Ph.D. candidate with the Services and Cybersecurity research group at the University of Twente (UT). My research is in the system security domain, focusing on the security of IoT devices.

In August 2021, I finished my master's in Computer Science, specializing in cybersecurity, from UT. In the two years, I learned a lot about the various aspects of cybersecurity. I was especially fascinated by system security after developing a honeypot for microservices architecture for my thesis.

Previously I worked as a senior ground software engineer at a startup (TeamIndus) in Bangalore, India. The company worked on a Lunar Landing missing as part of the Google Lunar XPRIZE competition. Since it was my first full-time job, it played a tremendous role in my personal and professional growth. I was part of the Mission Planning and Operations team and developed (from scratch) software and tools for near-real-time processing of the telemetry received from the spacecraft and the lunar rover. During my tenure there, I was also able to develop my soft skills in addition to technical skills. These included presentation skills, communication skills, attention to detail, and critical thinking.

I strongly believe in carving a path for more women in STEM fields and am an active member of EQUITY, a group for Female Doctoral Candidates at UT.

I hate being put in a box! I always go out of my way to climb out of the said box and prove people wrong.

I am far from all WORK and no PLAY!
I am an avid reader and love basically all genres of books as long as they are well written.
I love to dance and take regular dance classes. And surprisingly (mostly for me), I teach beginner Bollywood dance classes in a dance studio in Enschede as well.
I am a big foodie and love trying cusines from different countries! I enjoy cooking these cuisines as well!
I am mostly an indoor person, but some of my favorite outdoor activities are running, long bike rides, trekking, and hiking.


“Hard work is important. So are play and unproductivity. My worth is tied not to my productivity but to my existence. I am worthy of rest.” - Glennon Doyle

CV

Experience

  1. Member of Education and Training Committee

    Jan 2024 - Present

    Women4Cyber The Netherlands
    Women4Cyber The Netherlands is a non-profit organisation committed to fostering an inspiring and inclusive cybersecurity community where everyone can thrive.

  2. PhD Candidate

    Oct 2021 - Present

    University of Twente
    My PhD research is on the topic "Modeling IoT Device Behavior for Threat Detection and Response"

  3. Student Developer

    May 2020 - Aug 2020

    Google Summer of Code
    Worked with OWASP Foundation on their OWASP Honeypot project.
    • Refactored the existing code-base to improve readability, modularity and quality.
    • Standardized code testing by adding unit tests and setting up CI for the project.
    • Improved efficiency by replacing subprocess calls with an open-source library for capturing network traffic.
    • Implemented new features to the project that include storing network traffic in files and an interface to access recorded data and files.

  4. Senior Ground Software Engineer - TeamIndus Skywalker

    July 2016 - May 2019

    Team Indus - Axiom Research Labs Pvt. Ltd.
    As a senior software engineer in the Ground Software team, my work involved designing and developing mission-critical software required for Mission Control from where the spacecraft and the lunar rover would be monitored and controlled.
    I worked on all the phases of the software development life-cycle, starting from Planning & Designing till Deployment & Maintenance. The work here entailed the use of a wide variety of technologies and programming languages such as C, C++, CMake, googletest, Java, Python, Flask framework, QT, JavaScript, etc.
    During my tenure, I got a chance to deliver a TEDx talk on “Space: The Final Frontier” at NIT Surathkal, Karnataka, India.

  5. Data Science Intern

    Jan 2016 - May 2016

    Dataweave Software Pvt. Ltd.
    I interned with the semantics team, that was responsible for building the machine learning algorithms required for the smart tools developed in-house. During my tenure, I worked on Gender prediction and Attribute extraction from images of E-commerce apparel.
    I also exposed the models I developed as APIs which returned the predicted gender of the product taking image URL/ path as input. This tool was a PoC for the ML algorithms to be used for comparing products across E-commerce websites.
    For the PoC, I also built a benchmarking tool to compare the results of the existing systems and visualizing them in the form of graphs.

Education

  1. M.Sc Computer Science: Cybersecurity

    Sept 2019 - Aug 2021

    University of Twente (Enschede, Netherlands)
    Thesis: "HoneyKube: Designing a Honeypot Using Microservices-Based Architecture". The thesis report can be found here.
    My thesis was nominated for the ENIAC Thesis Award and an article was published about my thesis in the I/O VIVAT magazine, which can be found here (Pg.15).

  2. Master Honours Programme: Great Negotiators

    Nov 2020 - July 2021

    University of Twente (Enschede, Netherlands)
    This track focused on developing one’s negotiation and communication skills, strategic deal-making and ethical conflict management during the execution of various projects.

  3. B.Tech. Computer Science Engineering

    July 2012 - May 2016

    The LNM Institute of Information Technology (Jaipur, India)
    Activities and Societies: Coordinator Alumni Association, IEEE Student Branch - Vice-Chairperson(2015-16) and Secretary(2014-15), Admission Committee, Counselling Cell, Coordinator Dance Club (2014-2015)

Volunteer

  1. Volunteer

    Oct 2022 - April 2023

    M-Pact Enschede
    Work towards arranging donations from local organizations for the Ukrainian Refugee Center in Enschede.

  2. Job Buddy and Job Group Leader

    Nov 2022 - May 2023

    JobHulpMaatje Enschede
    Help and motivate people as a buddy during their job search journey.

Academic

Publications

  • HoneyKube: Designing and Deploying a Microservices-based Web Honeypot
    Chakshu Gupta, Thijs van Ede , Andrea Continella
    Proceedings of the SecWeb Workshop (SecWeb), 2023.
    [ pdf ] [ code ]

Supervision

Gabriele Abbate "Automated Generation of Security and Privacy Labels for IoT Devices: A Framework based on NIST Guidelines " (Graduated Sept 2024)
Martijn de Redelijkheid "Monitoring Network Traffic and Responding to Malicious Traffic for IoT Devices in 5G Network Slices" (Graduated March 2023)

Reviewer Service

2024 Springer Nature Computing Journal
2023 ACSAC : Artifact Evaluation Committee
2022 IEEE Transactions on Network and Service management : Subreviewer for Thijs van Ede

Media