Shikhil Sharma
Shikhil Sharma is the Founder of Astra Security – a continuous pentesting platform. At the very onset of his career, Shikhil consulted a number of businesses, startups & banks on cyber security. After helping some top businesses secure their websites & apps, Shikhil noted how in-effective traditional pentesting was, and founded Astra Security as an enabler to help bridge the same. He deeply cares about building habit forming products and designing intuitive marketing campaigns.
With 110,000+ monthly reported vulnerabilities, and over $30 Million saved in potential losses, Astra has earned recognition in esteemed publications like the Entrepreneur, Techradar, Splunk, Agari, and even CISA.
Expertise
- Pentesting
- Vulnerability Scanning
- Cloud Security Reviews
- Regulatory Compliance
- Offensive Security Exercises
- Product Strategy
- Inbound Marketing
Work at Astra
- Defining Astra’s product vision
- Evangelising Astra’s Pentest Platform
- Working closely with the marketing team in designing intuitive marketing plans
- Working closely with industry CTOs & CISOs to evolve Astra’s VAPT platform for web, mobile, Cloud, SaaS, network etc. pentests
- Overseeing the inbound marketing activities
Experience
Shikhil is a software engineer with 10+ years of hands-on experience in cybersecurity & product management. Early in his career, he consulted fintech, startups, and banks on cybersecurity. Recognizing the limitations of traditional pentesting, he founded Astra to bridge the gap.
Some of his most notable bug bounty programs Shikhil participated in include United Airlines, Microsoft, Yahoo, Blackberry, and AT&T. He is actively involved in the cybersecurity community and shares his knowledge at various forums, and industry events such as NULL and OWASP conferences.
Education
- NIIT University, B.Tech., Computer Science and Engineering
Awards & Recognitions
- Inducted in the security hall of fame for Microsoft, United Airlines, Yahoo, and Adobe.
- Awarded by the French President Mr. Francois Hollande under La French Tech with a startup grant from the French Government
- Awarded the Best Security Startup award by the Prime Minister of India Mr. Narendra Modi at the Global Conference on Cyber Security