My Internship Experience at A10 Networks

After a long internship search, I got my first internship offer from A10 Networks as a Threat Research Intern.

Project - Hacking Hackers

My goal is to build a Mirai Botnet tracker that tracks the victims in the early phases of the attack. As this is research work, the goals are not fixed. And why Mirai? Coz it’s very common. First, I started with analyzing the Mirai malware from Malware Bazaar by doing static and dynamic analysis. After so many trials, I figured out a unique technique(might get a patent for this 🥳) and built a tracker, as well as some other side quests that got good feedback.

Learning

I learned a lot of cool stuff working under Rich Groves, Diptanshu Purwar, and Abhay Chennagiri. Especially Rich’s mentorship was really awesome—I learned a lot, technically speaking. Coming to skills, my malware analysis skills skyrocketed, and looking at other interns’ projects inspired me to learn LLMs. (BTW I am working on a cool project, more on that later.)

Finally, this was my first time working from the office, and I really liked the work culture at A10 Networks. Also, huge thanks to Coleen, Salma, Aris, and Ron for all the behind-the-scenes work and for making my internship memorable!