Based in Hatfield, UK — reading for an MSc in Cyber Security at the University of Hertfordshire

Most students list courses.
I have a DOI.

I'm Dayanidhi Meganathan. I published peer-reviewed research on browser session hijacking at twenty, then went and worked real cases with the Tamil Nadu Police Cyber Cell. Now I'm looking for a placement where both of those become SOC work.

Read the research Email me
1
DOI-registered paper
3
internships, incl. Govt of India
Top 15
Sheffield Siege CTF 2026
Case log Ref. DM-2025
2025·04 Publication Paper filed — DOI 10.5281/zenodo.15287972
2025·06 Field duty Tamil Nadu Police Cyber Cell — case support begins
2025·08 Field duty Cyber Cell placement closed — evidence & triage logged
2026·03 Community Elected Chairperson, Herts Cyber Security Society
2026·05 Competition Sheffield Siege CTF — ranked top 15
2026·06 Editorial Technical Community Editor, British Computer Society
2026·07 Competition TryHackMe AI Odyssey CTF — ranked top 20
2027·01 Placement Status — open, seeking full-time SOC placement
AvailabilityOpen now
Start27 Jan 2027 (latest 26 Feb)
Duration7–8 months, full-time
Hours35–40 / week
ArrangementUniversity-backed placement year

The paper that starts every conversation

Published through the University of Hertfordshire, 2025 — DOI 10.5281/zenodo.15287972

Securing and Enhancing Web Browser Security through Cookie Encryption

I identified a gap in how browsers protect session cookies and built SecureCookieGuard, a Chrome extension that encrypts session cookies with AES-256 via the Web Crypto API to reduce exposure to XSS, CSRF, and session hijacking. It was published as peer-reviewed research with a permanent DOI — the same attack chain a SOC analyst is trained to spot in a log line, except I built the thing that stops it first.

T1185 Browser Session Hijacking T1539 Steal Web Session Cookie T1550 Use Alternate Authentication Material
Read the paper View the code

Where the work has actually happened

Jun – Aug 2025

Cybercrime Investigation Intern

Tamil Nadu Police Cyber Cell, Chennai

Supported live investigations across two units — Cyber Cell, Chengalpattu and Cyber Crime Wing, Chennai — covering financial fraud, phishing, and social-engineering cases. Assisted with digital evidence collection and chain-of-custody documentation under Indian IT Act 2000 frameworks, and applied structured IOC analysis to real incident data. Built TOR-Unveil, a TOR traffic-analysis tool, for the Tamil Nadu Police Hackathon 2025.

May 2026 – Present

Sales Associate (Part-time)

Moss Bros, Hatfield

Client consultations in a high-footfall retail environment — the same clear communication and composure under pressure that matters when explaining a finding to a non-technical stakeholder.

Jul – Aug 2024

Web Development Intern

AICTE & Edunet Foundation

Built and deployed web applications with Python (Flask), HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Identified and remediated security vulnerabilities and documented the fixes.

Jun – Jul 2024

Cyber Security Trainer

InternCareer

Designed and delivered cyber security training content and knowledge-base documentation for learners new to the field.

Outside the coursework

Leadership

Chairperson

Herts Cyber Security Society, University of Hertfordshire — 2026 to present. Organising events, coordinating industry speaker sessions, and building a community of security-focused students.

Editorial

Technical Community Editor

British Computer Society (BCS) — 2026 to present. Reviewing and publishing technical content that reaches a national professional audience.

Competition

Sheffield Siege CTF 2026

Ranked top 15 in a competitive national cyber security challenge.

Competition

TryHackMe AI Odyssey CTF 2026

Ranked top 20 in a global AI and cyber security challenge.

Things I've actually shipped

github.com/dayanidhi-meganathan
Research tooling

SecureCookieGuard

Chrome extension encrypting session cookies with AES-256-GCM to reduce exposure to session hijacking and CSRF. Grew out of the DOI-registered research paper above.

Repository
SME security

SME Security Assessment

A full security assessment for a hypothetical 50-person UK company — identity, endpoints, email, backups, network, awareness, and incident response, with a risk-rated findings table and a 90-day remediation roadmap.

Repository
Risk analysis

OWASP CVSS Risk Calculator

An open-source CVE finder and CVSS risk-scoring tool built on the OWASP Risk Ranking Methodology, pulling live CVE data and applying a weighted scoring model.

Repository
Pentest

OWASP Juice Shop — Security Assessment

Full web-application penetration test with documented findings, OWASP Top 10 classification, risk ratings, and remediation recommendations.

Repository
Detection engineering

SOC Detection Library

SPL detection queries in Splunk, KQL alert rules in Microsoft Sentinel, and documented incident-response playbooks for phishing, ransomware, and brute force.

Publishing to GitHub — in progress
Digital forensics

TOR-Unveil — Peel the Onion

A TOR network traffic-analysis tool using socket programming and packet inspection, built for the Tamil Nadu Police Hackathon 2025 as a real client engagement.

Private — government engagement

Certifications, and what's practiced not just theorised

In progress

  • In progress
    CompTIA Security+ SY0-701Target — September 2026
  • In progress
    Splunk Core Certified User
  • In progress
    TryHackMe SOC Level 1

Planned

  • Planned
    ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity (CC)
  • Planned
    SC-200: Microsoft Security Operations Analyst

Earned

  • Earned
    CAPIE — Certified API Hacking ExpertTheXSSRat, 2025 — Burp Suite, API security, BOLA, auth bypass
  • Earned
    Google Cybersecurity Professional Certificate2025
  • Earned
    Cisco Networking AcademyEthical Hacker
  • Earned
    EC-CouncilDark Web & Cryptocurrency
  • Earned
    IIT BombayPython & PostgreSQL

On TryHackMe, I've completed the Autopsy room (disk imaging, artefact analysis, forensic timelines) at 100%, alongside regular practice in SIEM alert triage and MITRE ATT&CK mapping. I've worked 25+ real SOC alert investigations on LetsDefend and CyberDefenders, and attended the OWASP London Chapter meetup in March 2026.

SIEMSplunk (SPL), Microsoft Sentinel (KQL)
FrameworksMITRE ATT&CK, NIST Incident Response
Network analysisWireshark, TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/S, PCAP
Threat intelligenceVirusTotal, urlscan.io, abuse.ch, OSINT
Web securityOWASP Top 10, XSS, CSRF, session hijacking
OS & endpointWindows Event Logs, Linux (syslog, auditd)
SOC platformsLetsDefend, CyberDefenders, TryHackMe
DevelopmentPython, JavaScript, AES-256 / Web Crypto API

Open for a full-time placement from January 2027. Let's talk.

mail.dayanidhim@gmail.com
LinkedIn GitHub Published paper