lp

Cybersecurity & Python

Kansas City area

Leela Padala.

Cybersecurity analyst.
Security engineer.

I investigate alerts, review cloud and application security, and write Python to make the work easier. Lately, I’ve been contributing fixes to open-source security tools.

Explore my work Connect on LinkedIn

Areas of work

  • Security operations
  • Cloud & access
  • Application security
  • Python

01 / Selected work

Open-source work

Focused fixes in tools I want to understand better. The pull requests include the problem, the change, and the validation.

PRs open · Status checked

Prowler / Cloud security

Keeping Azure
scans complete.

An optional setting should not make a resource disappear from a security scan. I proposed fixes for Azure collection errors that dropped the affected resource and others after it.

The changes handle missing values and failed settings lookups while keeping the existing security checks in place.

Validation in the PRs

Regression tests with synthetic Azure SDK responses, including the findings for resources collected after a failure.

App Service16 Oct 2026

Retain apps when authentication settings are unreadable

I isolated authentication-settings errors so apps and unrelated findings remain available. Unknown authentication state is flagged for manual review.

Review PR #13072
SQL Server16 Oct 2026

Keep SQL servers visible when scan settings are missing

I handled absent recurring-scan configuration so SQL inventory collection continues and existing checks can report the missing settings.

Review PR #13074
Three more Azure fixes
Virtual machines

Keep VMs in inventory when security flags are null, with coverage for downstream findings.

VM fix #13042
Storage accounts

Handle absent private-endpoint lists without dropping the account or stopping collection.

Storage fix #13031
Network security groups

Detect internet sources in prefix lists as well as the single-source field.

Network fix #13029

pySigma / Python library

Preserving pipeline
configurations.

Loading a pipeline removed keys from the caller’s configuration, so a second load could fail. I copied finalizer settings before parsing and added regression tests for repeated loading, nested finalizers, and policy handling.

Review pySigma PR #597

Sigma / Detection rules

Matching the right
web-log events.

I corrected W3C header fields in two webserver rules and tightened empty-header matching. Validation included synthetic events that should match and populated-header cases that should not.

Review Sigma PR #6445
All my pull requests on GitHub

02 / Personal projects

Built with Python

A log-analysis practice project, followed by the notebooks where I worked on data cleaning and exploration.

Security logs / Private repository

SOC Log Analyzer

I built this practice tool to flag login patterns worth investigating: repeated failures, attempts across multiple accounts, and a success after failures.

It reads CSV and JSONL logs and produces JSON and Markdown reports. The walkthrough here shows how I would reason about a few sample events.

Inputs
CSV & JSONL
Outputs
JSON & Markdown
Scope
Practice project; code is private

A closer look at the logs

Sample data

Choose a pattern to follow the investigation.

Synthetic login events for the selected pattern
TimeAccountResult
09:41:02demo.alexfailed
09:41:18demo.alexfailed
09:41:36demo.alexfailed
09:42:04demo.alexfailed
What I’d check next

One account has four failed logins in about a minute. I would check where they came from and whether an old password or a scheduled task could explain them.

Illustrative walkthrough with synthetic events, rather than a live run of the private tool. A pattern alone does not establish an attack.

Data notebooks

Earlier coursework & exploration

Data Analysis Project

pandas · NumPy

Missing-value handling, numeric normalization, grouped summaries, and bootstrap exercises. Setup notes identify the inputs that are not bundled.

Explore notebook

Data Science Assignment

pandas · seaborn · Plotly

Data integration, student-performance charts, and exploratory comparisons, with documented input requirements and interpretation limits.

Explore notebook

Frailty Analysis

pandas · matplotlib

A ten-record exploration of grip strength and frailty using correlation and a boxplot. An exercise in analysis, with clear small-sample limits.

Explore notebook

03 / Background

The experience
behind the work.

My background spans security operations, application and API security, cloud reviews, and identity and access controls.

Full background on LinkedIn

May 2022 – Jun 2024

Cyber Security Analyst

Cyber Castrum LLP

Reviewed alerts, investigated security issues, tracked remediation, and checked cloud settings and user access.

May 2019 – May 2022

Security Engineer

Cyber Castrum LLP

Worked on application and API security, reviewed logs, tested for vulnerabilities, and helped teams address security gaps.

Education

M.S. Computer Science

University of Missouri-Kansas City

04 / What’s next

Let’s get
in touch.

I’m interested in cybersecurity analyst and security engineering roles. If you’re working on a team where my experience could help, I’d like to hear from you.

Message me on LinkedIn Find me on GitHub