Cybersecurity
- Incident Response
- Vulnerability Assessment
- SIEM Tuning
- Risk Assessment
- Compliance Auditing (HIPAA, PCI)
- Endpoint Protection
- Forensic Recovery
Vikram Shanker
viktechcomputers@gmail.com · 262-347-7557 · Shorewood, WI
About
I do not give up on my team. I’m a technical scuba diver and rock climbing instructor: when the team knows there is core stability, everyone grits down a little harder. I will go back and get people on track that have fallen off track in the kitchen or at station. Fast, smart flow state. Calm customers, short wait times, fresh ingredients, and optimal portion sizing. Knife skills and accurate scoops do the talking. Dishes go away if you do them.
Technical diving
When the team knows there is core stability, everyone grits down a little harder.
Core skills
Infrastructure
- Active Directory
- Office 365/Azure
- Hyper-V/VMware
- WSUS
- Veeam
- SQL Server
- ERP Administration
- HA Clustering
- WAN/LAN Architecture
Networking
- Cisco/Meraki
- pfSense/Fortinet
- RADIUS
- VLAN/VoIP
- Wireless (P2P/P2MP)
- Traffic Analysis
- Ruleset Auditing
Tools
- Splunk
- Solarwinds
- Netwrix
- PRTG
- Tenable Nessus
- Microsoft Defender
- Symantec EP
- Burp Suite
- Nmap
- Kali
- Wireshark
Coding
- Python
- PowerShell
- Bash
- SQL
- C/C++
- HTML/CSS
Manufacturing (in progress)
- CNC Mill/Lathe Operation
- G-Code/M-Code
- Blueprint Reading
- Precision Measurement
- NIMS-aligned coursework
Quality / Process
- Six Sigma Green Belt
- CI Methodology
- Documentation
- Change Management
Professional experience
April 2026 – August 2026
Crew Member
Toppers Pizza, Milwaukee, WI
- Handled food ordering and inventory.
August 2025 – January 2026
Shift Lead
Brute Pizza, Milwaukee, WI
- Directed three line cooks.
- Operated kitchen station and dough preparation under Michelin-trained chef.
- Managed prep list and order list maintenance during high-volume service.
- Coordinated front-of-house expo and back-of-house prep with small kitchen team.
2024 – 2026
Produce Journeyperson
Outpost Natural Foods, Milwaukee, WI
- Unloaded and prepped high-quality produce for natural grocery chain.
- Ensured freshness and maximized lifespan of diverse seasonal produce.
- Focused on sanitizing and reducing bacterial spoilage.
April 2022 – August 2022
Cybersecurity Engineer
NetForward Corp, Racine, WI
- Implemented cybersecurity measures and protocols to protect corporate networks and data assets.
- Conducted vulnerability assessments and penetration testing to identify and address security risks.
August 2022 – April 2023
Manager
Chalet Motel of Mequon, Mequon, WI
- Managed daily operations including guest services, housekeeping, and maintenance.
- Oversaw staff scheduling, training, and performance evaluations.
October 2021 – May 2025
Landscape Technician
Gavin Landscaping, Mequon, WI
- Performed planting, trimming, and lawn maintenance across residential and commercial properties.
- Operated landscaping equipment and tools to ensure efficient project completion.
June 2020 – January 2024 (dissolved)
Founder, Chief Technical Officer
Flextech Design, Shorewood, WI
- Officer for an on-demand micro-manufacturing business.
- Prototyped manufacturing process monitoring and automation.
- Designed and implemented concept-to-fulfillment value stream.
- Managed customer requests, vendor relationships, and technical inquiries.
August 2020 – November 2020
Security Consultant (Contract)
Monitoring Alarm Services, Milwaukee, WI
- Responded to ongoing ransomware attack on a medium-scale business.
- Designed remediation plan to respond and recover from the adverse security event.
- Performed Impact and Risk assessments to identify scope and scale of mitigation.
- Implemented Azure AD, cloud backup, MFA, MDM, asset tracking, and workstation imaging.
February 2020 – July 2020
Infrastructure Security Engineer (Contract)
TEKsystems, Mequon, WI
- Designed and implemented security and infrastructure monitoring and alerting for MSP.
- Deployed vulnerability scanners, performed assessments, and created remediation plans.
- Implemented comprehensive log monitoring and tuned event alerting.
June 2019 – January 2020
Operations Manager
Wisconsin Growers Alliance, Colgate, WI
- Managed a team of growers and laborers in a greenhouse revitalization project.
October 2018 – May 2019
Systems Engineer (Solarwinds, Contract)
Milwaukee County via TEKsystems, Milwaukee, WI
- Iteratively tuned Solarwinds based on organizational requirements.
- Categorized and classified errors and anomalies; developed response plans.
- Enumerated infrastructure to identify undocumented or uninventoried resources.
- Designed and implemented a tiered monitoring and alerting schema.
- Developed weekly, monthly, and quarterly KPI reports for C-level administration.
2018 – 2019
Line Prep and Processing
Birch+Butcher, Milwaukee, WI
- Butchered chicken, beef, pork, lamb for diverse menu; grilled and sautéed.
- Recognized by Chef Owner for outstanding food knowledge.
August 2017 – May 2018
Security / Systems / Network Engineer
OS Inc, Pewaukee, WI
- Administered IT systems in multidomain environment of 50+ users accessing 100+ healthcare providers.
- Implemented Netwrix Auditor and SCCM to increase visibility and detection of issues.
- Performed risk assessments and audits related to Medicare access, internal/vendor security, hardware/software licensing, HIPAA and PCI compliance.
- Analyzed phishing emails, suspicious files, unusual activity, and indicators of compromise.
- Upgraded domain controllers, raised functional level, and rebuilt AD using RBAC principles.
- Developed end-user security training and education materials using emergent threat examples.
December 2015 – February 2017
IT Manager / Systems Administrator
Construction Forms, Port Washington, WI
- Sole IT employee of international multisite manufacturing company with 150+ employees in US, Wales, and Germany.
- Administered SQL Server and ERP databases, including writing custom SQL queries to modify and extract data in production.
- Led contracted development team in development of manufacturing ERP database and integration with partnered concrete-pumping ERP team.
- Defined business requirements and implemented network/server overhaul including HA Clustering, Network RAID, SSD Tiering, Fiber backbone, and redundant network distribution — $70K investment.
- Created and maintained Active Directory structure, security and distribution groups.
- Implemented WSUS server to standardize patch deployment and increase overall security.
- Administered multidomain Office 365 / Exchange Online / SharePoint / OneDrive / Skype for Business deployment.
November 2014 – June 2015
Technical Sales Manager
National Broadband (NB Tech), Milwaukee, WI
- Configured and deployed 6 routers and 15 antennas to create a WISP backbone servicing Milwaukee County.
- Reviewed and responded to monitoring and scanning alerts; recommended and implemented changes to mitigate security issues.
- Performed physical, data, and network security audits and analysis.
- Performed on-site RF analysis to plan antenna installation and calibration; designed credential storage policy.
- Acted as primary liaison for Technical Managers and Administrators during sales process.
April 2014 – June 2014
Systems Engineer
Manage-Point, Wauwatosa, WI
- Performed administrative maintenance tasks on Microsoft-based infrastructure.
- Configured 30+ workstations for 7 business infrastructure deployments or upgrades.
- Resolved 40+ tickets via remote and on-site support.
September 2013 – March 2014
Managing Technician
Riverwest Computer Repair, Milwaukee, WI
- Created standardized comprehensive deployment to maximize security, simplify usability, minimize infection rate, and create restore points.
- Deployed PXE and NAS to centralize resources; automated diagnostics and repair via boot images and scripts.
- Created malware test environments to log filesystem/registry modifications, identify propagation vectors, test AV detection, and optimize removal.
- Performed packet analysis of infected computers to characterize infections and anomalous traffic.
October 2011 – November 2013
Junior Engineer
Secure Building Technologies (SBT), Milwaukee, WI
- Collaborated in design and installation of access control and surveillance systems for medium and large business environments.
- Built and configured custom stand-alone network DVRs.
- Performed physical security audits to determine areas of coverage, vulnerabilities, access security, and response time.
- Programmed alarm panels and access control lists.
- Assisted in creation and implementation of custom covert surveillance tools for law enforcement.
August 2010 – December 2015
Senior Systems Engineer / Managing Technician
Integrated Technology Solutions (ITS), Milwaukee, WI
- Streamlined diagnostic and repair process by leveraging PXE, NAS, and Bash scripting to centralize and automate scanning, analysis, and reporting.
- Standardized software deployments on new and existing client computers to increase baseline security, expedite deployment/reimaging, and simplify troubleshooting.
- Reduced “technician hands-on time to resolution” by 61% through standardization and automation.
- Decreased technician time-per-machine by 70% via diagnostic automation (separate metric).
- Implemented custom networking schema to isolate infected client PCs, segregate IT resources, and offer segregated wireless access to customers.
- Configured server interfaces in Gentoo for redundant switching.
- Configured routers to utilize RADIUS authentication; managed client access through VISP portal.
- Designed, implemented, and maintained access control, surveillance, alarm, and POS solutions for medical, manufacturing, government, and large enterprise clients.
- Assisted in creation, implementation, and maintenance of an ITS-owned Wireless Internet Service Provider servicing Metro Milwaukee.
- Configured, deployed, and calibrated point-to-point and point-to-multipoint wireless antennas and bridges.
- Created topological maps of internal, WAN, and client-side network configurations.
2005 – Present (Viktech LLC entity formed July 2010)
Owner / IT Consultant
Viktech, Milwaukee, WI
- Repaired 400+ computers for 150+ home and small-business customers.
- Worked with clients and administrators to perform infrastructure deployments and upgrades.
- Configured workstations, mobile devices, network firewalls, VPNs, and domain policies.
- Installed and configured servers, routing, firewalling, switching, printers, VoIP devices, IP cameras, and wireless access points.
- Planned and managed hardware/software implementation, migration, and integration for SMB clients.
- Responded and resolved incidents involving data loss, equipment failure, security breaches, and unauthorized disclosure.
- Designed and implemented Backup, Failover, Recovery, and Secure Destruction solutions.
- Conducted comprehensive diagnostics of complex systems to investigate, support, and resolve issues.
May 2008 – May 2009
QA Tester
Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, WI
- Entered post-transplant cancer survey results into newly-developed Oracle database.
- Provided critical input to increase ease-of-use and accessibility by research staff.
- Performed testing of input validation and verification processes.
- Identified, documented, and reported bugs or unhandled errors.
- Verified proper enabling/disabling of features and permissions based on user account access levels.
2006 – 2007
Barista
Starbucks, Menomonee Falls, WI
- Trained new employees in operating procedures, beverage standards, and product knowledge.
Dedicated cybersecurity engineering — 4+ years cumulative
(2011–2022, multiple engagements; security responsibilities also embedded in IT roles throughout 15+ year career)
- Secure Building Technologies — Junior Engineer — 10/2011-11/2013
- OS Inc — Security/Systems/Network Engineer — 8/2017-5/2018
- Milwaukee County (TEKsystems) — Systems Engineer (Solarwinds) — 10/2018-5/2019
- TEKsystems Mequon — Infrastructure Security Engineer (contract) — 2/2020-7/2020
- Monitoring Alarm Services — Security Consultant (contract) — 8/2020-11/2020
- NetForward Corp — Cybersecurity Engineer — 4/2022-8/2022
Certifications
- Six Sigma Green Belt
Past certifications
- (ISC)² CISSP — 2019-2025 (lapsed, reactivation in progress)
Education
Manufacturing Technology Coursework — IESI Institute, Milwaukee, WI
Coursework
- CNC mills and lathes operation
- G-code / M-code fundamentals
- Blueprint and technical drawing interpretation
- Precision measurement (calipers, micrometers, gauges)
Information Security Specialist Coursework Completed, No Degree
Coursework
- Information Security Coursework (no certifications):
- CompTIA IT Technician Essentials (A+ exam prep — exam not taken)
- CompTIA Network Communications (Network+ exam prep — exam not taken)
- CompTIA Network Security (Security+ exam prep — exam not taken)
- MS Server Administration I & II
- Cisco I & II
- Unix/Linux Administration and Security
- Security Policies and Procedures
- Information Security Principles
- Router Security; Perimeter Security
- Securing Wireless Devices and Networks
- Computer Forensics; Malware Forensics
- Digital Forensics Coursework — MATC (no diploma issued)
Computer Science (Coursework Completed, No Degree)
Coursework
- Formal Logic / Symbolic Logic
- Intermediate Computer Programming (C++)
- Data Structures & Algorithms
- Discrete Information Structures
- Social, Professional & Ethical Issues
- Introduction to Operating Systems
- Calculus II / Differential & Multivariable Calculus
Volunteer experience
- DryHootch — IT training to Veterans, 2010 – 2012
- People’s Books Cooperative — IT services and operations support, 2008 – 2014
- Riverwest Co-op — Store Volunteer, 2010 – 2015
- Riverkeepers’ Alliance — Cleanup Volunteer, 2018 – 2020
- St Benedict the Moor — Food Pantry Volunteer, 2016 – 2020
- Adventure Rock — Strength Coach / Climbing Instructor, 2020 – 2023
- Hindu Temple of Wisconsin — Community Service
Affiliations
- Milwaukee Makerspace — Member since 2013; proactive newcomer introducer; board candidate
- HackThisSite CTF Team — 2017 – Present
- DEFCON 414 — Member
- Milwaukee Inventors and Entrepreneur’s Club — 2013 – 2015
Interests
Pizza making, sourdough crafting, and fermentation experimentation. Music production (drum & bass, hip-hop). FPV drones and amateur radio. Hammock camping. Leatherworking. Hindu mythology and iconography. Technical scuba diving.
