saikishore annadanam

Network Security Engineer

Cognizant

Jul 2022 - Jul 2026

Administered and managed Zscaler ZIA and ZPA for secure internet access and zero-trust private application access (SASE/SSE). Configured ZIA policies — URL filtering, cloud firewall, SSL/TLS inspection, bandwidth control, DLP, sandbox, CASB and threat protection. Onboarded internal applications to ZPA/ZTNA — application segments, access policies, server groups and ZPA App Connectors. Configured Netskope CASB policies for sanctioned and unsanctioned SaaS applications — app visibility, Cloud Confidence Index risk scoring, and inline and API-based controls. Managed Zscaler Client Connector deployment, PAC files and forwarding profiles for global and remote users. Investigated CASB and DLP policy violations in the Netskope console, tuned policies to reduce false positives and forwarded alerts to Splunk. Performed ZDX traffic and performance analysis to identify and remediate user connectivity issues. Troubleshot ZIA/ZPA/ZCC incidents involving URL filtering, firewall rules, SSL inspection, DLP triggers and application access faults. Integrated Zscaler logs with Splunk SIEM for detection and alerting. Created custom URL filtering profiles and blocking policies for risky applications and web categories. Configured and managed Palo Alto NGFW and Panorama — security policies, NAT rules, dynamic objects, security zones, App-ID/User-ID, threat prevention and logging. Configured and troubleshot IPSec site-to-site VPN and remote-access VPN (Cisco AnyConnect, Palo Alto GlobalProtect, SSL-VPN). Executed pre/post-maintenance WAN validation and link-stability checks; supported DNS and DHCP operations. Performed incident triage, log analysis, event correlation and root-cause analysis (RCA) using Splunk SIEM. Performed deep packet analysis with Wireshark. Logged, resolved and documented changes and incidents in ServiceNow.