CV

Profile

Cybersecurity engineer, security researcher, and senior DevOps/cloud infrastructure engineer with 15+ years of experience across penetration testing, vulnerability research, intrusion detection, applied AI for security monitoring, and large-scale cloud & HPC infrastructure. PhD in Cybersecurity (Goethe University Frankfurt, in collaboration with CERN). Published researcher with 200+ peer-reviewed papers and 6 assigned CVEs, including a Microsoft-acknowledged memory-corruption vulnerability. Experienced across the full security and infrastructure lifecycle: ethical hacking and source code audits for banks and ISPs, five years of AWS/Kubernetes/Terraform infrastructure for blockchain products at Edenia, seven years embedded in the ALICE experiment at CERN, and founding a security startup.

Education

• PhD, Computer Science (Cybersecurity), Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 2013–2019
  • Thesis: “Deep Learning and Isolation Based Security for Intrusion Detection and Prevention in Grid Computing”
• BTA Certified Blockchain Security Professional, Blockchain Training Alliance, 2021
• BSc, Computer Science, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia, 2003–2011
  • Awarded thesis: “Fast Selection of Radial Basis Function Network Centers Based on Marginal Data Analysis”

Work experience

• 2026–Present: Part-Time Professor, Security/Blockchain
  • Costa Rica Institute of Technology (TEC)
  • Teach within the Cybersecurity Master’s program, covering blockchain security fundamentals.
• 2025–2026: Security & DevOps Developer
  • Modulo Labs
  • Analyzed and developed cryptographic code and smart contracts for Panther, a privacy-enhancing protocol, with a focus on security review.
  • Managed deployment pipelines and infrastructure for the protocol on the Polygon ecosystem.
• 2020–2025: Co-Founder & CEO
  • Sakundi ÖU
  • Founded and lead a security, privacy, and digital identity startup, setting technical direction and client strategy.
  • Deliver security audits, monitoring solutions, and identity infrastructure to enterprise and protocol clients.
  • Designed and maintained reproducible, auditable deployment pipelines and infrastructure-as-code for client environments.
• 2020–2025: Blockchain DevOps Engineer
  • Edenia
  • Designed, deployed, and maintained Linux-based on-premise and cloud infrastructure on AWS (EC2, EKS, S3, IAM, VPC) for blockchain-focused products, across development, staging, and production environments.
  • Provisioned and managed Kubernetes clusters, handling deployments, scaling, service mesh configuration, and rollout strategies for containerized microservices.
  • Authored and maintained Terraform modules for infrastructure-as-code, enabling reproducible, version-controlled provisioning of all cloud resources.
  • Built and maintained CI/CD pipelines using GitHub Actions, automating build, test, and deployment workflows across multiple projects.
  • Implemented observability solutions using Grafana and Prometheus — dashboards, alerting rules, and threshold tuning for operational visibility.
  • Worked within a distributed, remote-first team delivering infrastructure for blockchain ecosystems including EOSIO/Antelope, Ethereum, and Bitcoin networks.
• 2013–2020: DevOps Engineer
  • Goethe University Frankfurt / CERN (ALICE Experiment)
  • Built and maintained the security monitoring and infrastructure management system for the ALICE High-Level Trigger (HLT) computing cluster — a large-scale, heterogeneous Linux environment processing live detector data at the Large Hadron Collider.
  • Managed infrastructure-as-code and configuration management using Puppet and Ansible, enforcing consistent hardened baselines across hundreds of compute nodes.
  • Operated and monitored cluster health and performance using Zabbix, building dashboards and alert rules; contributed to the HLT read-out upgrade for LHC Run 2 (published in JINST).
  • Worked with Vagrant and OpenStack for virtual environment provisioning, automating the lifecycle of development and test environments.
• 2013–2019: PhD Researcher, Computer Science (Cybersecurity)
  • Goethe University Frankfurt / CERN
  • Researched deep learning (generative models) and isolation-based methods for intrusion detection and prevention on the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG), one of the largest distributed computing infrastructures in the world.
  • Built a Python/Perl framework implementing the research; co-authored 3 peer-reviewed papers from this work.
• 2011–2013: Security Researcher
  • Fluid Attacks
  • Performed infrastructure assessments, penetration tests, source code audits, and vulnerability assessments for banks, software development companies, and ISPs.
  • Conducted ethical hacking engagements; identified and reported multiple CVEs, including a Microsoft DirectShow memory-overwrite vulnerability (MS13-056).

Skills

• Offensive Security
  • Penetration testing, source code auditing, fuzzing, vulnerability research & exploit development, ethical hacking, CVE research
• Defensive Security
  • Intrusion detection & prevention, security monitoring for distributed/grid systems, distributed digital identity, CIS hardening, IAM least privilege, SSH key management, MFA, vulnerability scanning
• Cloud & Infrastructure
  • OpenStack, AWS (EC2, EKS, S3, CloudWatch, IAM, VPC), multi-account environments, Linux (Debian, Ubuntu, CentOS, Tails)
• Containers & Orchestration
  • Docker, Kubernetes (EKS), Helm, containerized microservices deployment
• CI/CD
  • GitLab CI (pipelines, downstream, multi-project), GitHub Actions, Jenkins
• IaC & Configuration Management
  • Terraform, Puppet, Ansible, Foreman, Vagrant — reproducible, version-controlled infrastructure
• Monitoring & Observability
  • Grafana, Prometheus, Zabbix, AWS CloudWatch, ELK Stack — dashboards, alerting, anomaly detection
• AI / ML for Security
  • Deep learning, machine learning, NLP — TensorFlow, Keras, scikit-learn, pandas, NumPy, SciPy, Gensim
• Programming & Scripting
  • Python, Bash/Shell, JavaScript/Node.js, Perl, C/C++, Java, Solidity
• Blockchain
  • Ethereum, Bitcoin, Polygon, Antelope (EOSIO), Dash, Nym — validator/node infrastructure, zero-knowledge proofs
• Spoken Languages
  • Spanish (Native), English (Fluent), German (Basic)

Selected projects

• Tikuna — AI-based security monitoring system for the Ethereum P2P network (nodes & validators), funded by an Ethereum Foundation Academic Research grant.
• Arhuaco — PhD thesis project at CERN: deep learning and isolation-based intrusion detection for distributed high-throughput computing.
• Zikuani — Privacy-preserving identity verification system using zero-knowledge proofs. Backed by ZK Bankai and Polygon; DIF 2025 hackathon winner.
• ZK Voto Digital — Secure voting system using Zikuani to verify voter eligibility (humanity, citizenship, age) without exposing personal identity.

Publications

Tikuna: An Ethereum Blockchain Network Security Monitoring System Permalink

Gómez Ramírez, A., Al Sardy, L., Gómez Ramírez, F. (2023). "Tikuna: An Ethereum Blockchain Network Security Monitoring System." ISPEC 2023, Springer LNCS vol. 14341.

Arhuaco: Deep Learning and Isolation Based Security for Distributed High-Throughput Computing Permalink

Gómez Ramírez, A., Lara, C., Betev, L., Bilanovic, D., Kebschull, U. (ALICE Collaboration). "Arhuaco: Deep Learning and Isolation Based Security for Distributed High-Throughput Computing." Journal of Grid Computing.

A Security Monitoring Framework for Virtualization Based HEP Infrastructures

Gómez Ramírez, A., Martínez Pedreira, M., Grigoras, C., Betev, L., Lara, C., Kebschull, U. (ALICE Collaboration). (2017). "A Security Monitoring Framework for Virtualization Based HEP Infrastructures." Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 898(10).

The ALICE High-Level Trigger Read-Out Upgrade for LHC Run 2

Engel, H., Alt, T., Breitner, T., Gómez Ramírez, A. et al. (ALICE Collaboration). (2015). "The ALICE High-Level Trigger Read-Out Upgrade for LHC Run 2." JINST, IOP Publishing.

Intrusion Prevention and Detection in Grid Computing — The ALICE Case

Gómez Ramírez, A., Lara, C., Kebschull, U. (ALICE Collaboration). (2015). "Intrusion Prevention and Detection in Grid Computing — The ALICE Case." Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 664(6).

O2: A Novel Combined Online and Offline Computing System for the ALICE Experiment

The ALICE Collaboration (incl. Gómez Ramírez, A.). (2014). "O2: A Novel Combined Online and Offline Computing System for the ALICE Experiment." Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 513(1).

CVEs & disclosures

• 6 CVEs assigned: CVE-2011-4620, CVE-2012-1189, CVE-2012-2090, CVE-2012-2091, CVE-2012-4552, CVE-2012-5576
• Including MS13-056 (DirectShow memory-overwrite vulnerability), published in the National Vulnerability Database

Talks

Teaching

Blockchain Security Fundamentals

References

• Available upon request, including former supervisors at CERN and Fluid Attacks.