Emerging Leader in Cybersecurity: Milind Purswani

Additional Info

Job title of nominated professional (or team name)Security Engineer II at Amazon Inc,
Company (where nominated professional or team is working)Amazon.com Inc,
Websitehttps://milindpurswani.com
Company size (employees)10,000 or more
CountryUnited States
Headquarters RegionNorth America

Overview

Milind Purswani, a 26-year-old cybersecurity enthusiast, is currently employed at Amazon. Hailing from India, Milind’s zeal for cybersecurity drove him to pursue a Master of Engineering in Cybersecurity from UMD. He self-funded his education entirely through bug bounty-hunting and assistantships, earning an exceptional $100,000 along the way.

Through his remarkable expertise, Milind has saved Amazon millions of dollars and decades of technical security debt. He has played a vital role in prioritizing security issues and safeguarding Amazon FireTV and Amazon Kindle, leading to his rapid promotion to Security Engineer II within 18 months.

Additionally, Milind has been recognized as world’s top 25 hackers. He competed in the world’s largest ethical hacking competition, organized by HackerOne H1-2010, where he outperformed over 4,500 hackers from 59 different countries. Highly respected security researchers like Nahamsec and Codingo have praised Milind’s remarkable contributions to creating innovative tools, including WhoxyRM and Syborg, which he voluntarily maintains to advance the community and make the internet a safer place.

At the young age of 19, he earned his CEH certification and was awarded the prestigious 1st Prize at the all-India Braintech Cybersecurity Championship. This accolade helped him gain widespread recognition and earned him over Rs 50,000, which he used to fund the remainder of his bachelor’s education. Milind is also the proud holder of two CVEs, CVE-2021-22193 and CVE-2023-29066, latter recognized by CISA.

Furthermore, Milind’s blogs on pandaonair.com, where he shares his knowledge and learning, have been recognized by multiple cybersecurity bodies, Intigiti, hacktricks, and Sprocket Security. Milind is an exceptional cybersecurity professional, and his skills and talents have earned him several accolades. He was selected as a finalist for Outstanding Young Cyber Security Professional at the 2024 Cyber Outstanding Security Performance Awards, and his expertise has led to his selection to judge applications at the 2024 Cybersecurity Globee Awards and the 2023 Brandon Hall Technology and Educational Technology Awards.

Accomplishments

Milind Purswani currently working at Amazon. He has played a vital role in safeguarding Amazon FireTV and Amazon Kindle, leading to his rapid promotion to Security Engineer II within 18 months. His contributions have helped over 1 million authors in Amazon publish books through Amazon’s Kindle Desktop Publishing. These contributions have also helped Amazon pay over $45 million monthly royalties to Kindle authors. Additionally, he has secured over 200 million current and future FireTV devices.


Milind earned an impressive $100,000 through bug bounty hunting and assistantships to pay for his tuition without any educational loan at 22. He also goes by pandaonair and was recognized as one of the world's top 25 hackers at the World’s largest live hacking event H1-2010. He is a community leader with over 2000 people following him on Twitter and for his open-source contributions to creating innovative tools, including WhoxyRM and Syborg. These tools have been instrumental to many security researchers and acknowledged by top bug bounty hunters such as Nahamsec and Codingo.


He has won multiple accolades for his expertise, including the prestigious 1st Prize at the all-India Braintech Cybersecurity Championship, and he has been selected as a finalist for Outstanding Young Cyber Security Professional at the 2024 Cyber Outstanding Performance Awards.


Check out some resources related to Milind and his work:
https://github.com/milindpurswani/Syborg
https://github.com/milindpurswani/WhoxyRM
https://github.com/milindpurswani/takemeon
https://pandaonair.com
https://milindpurswani.com
https://www.hackerone.com/hackerone-community-blog/worlds-largest-live-hacking-event
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yffOjRhvhZw&t=676s