The design comes before the invoice
A quote without a design is a guess with a price on it. We survey first, write the design, and only then price the equipment that design requires.
About
A small firm that would rather
A small firm that would rather
be right than be big.
SankaraShield is a network and cybersecurity practice based in Arlington, Virginia, serving small and mid-sized organisations in the United States and West Africa. It exists because too much infrastructure is sold by people who will never have to defend it.
What we believe
Three positions we do not move on.
Vendor-neutral, and it costs us money
No manufacturer sets our recommendations. Sometimes that means quoting a smaller box, a competitor’s platform, or telling a client their existing kit is fine for another two years.
We do not claim what we cannot show
No invented client counts, no borrowed logos, no partner badges we were never granted. The certifications listed are held. The lab work is published and can be read line by line.
Why purple
The name is the method.
Red teams break things. Blue teams defend them. Purple is what happens when the same people do both — and it is the only way to know whether a control actually works.
Redhow it gets broken
Bluehow it gets defended
Purpleproof that it holds
In practice it means we do not hand over a firewall with the default policy and call it secure. We configure it, then we try to get past it, then we show you what the logs looked like when we did.
Founder
Kodjo Apedoh
Network and cloud security engineer, based in Arlington, Virginia. US citizen. Works in English and French.
Background
- Associate of Applied Science, Computer Systems Networking — NorthWest Arkansas Community College, 3.8 GPA, Phi Theta Kappa, Dean’s List
- Bachelor of Business Administration — ESGIS
- IT support for a healthcare practice, 2 years 7 months, under HIPAA constraints
- Founder of SankaraShield, network and security infrastructure
Focus
- Firewall policy and network segmentation
- Secure remote access — IPsec, SSL VPN, ZTNA and SASE
- Routing and switching for multi-site networks
- Detection engineering and configuration compliance
Certifications
- Cisco CCNA
- Fortinet NSE
- Palo Alto SASE
- Palo Alto Cloud Security
- CompTIA Security+ — in progress
- CEH — in progress
Lab work, configurations and detection rules are published at github.com/ktf40858-stack.
Careers & recruiters
Open to remote engineering roles.
SankaraShield is a working practice, not a closed door. Its founder is actively available for a remote Network & Cloud Security Engineer position, and is happy to say so plainly rather than have a recruiter guess.
The short version
- Looking for: Network & Cloud Security Engineer, SASE / Zero Trust focus
- Arrangement: fully remote, or hybrid in the Washington DC / Northern Virginia area
- Status: US citizen, Arlington VA, Eastern time zone, no sponsorship required
- Certified on: Cisco, Fortinet and Palo Alto platforms — Security+ and CEH in progress
- Evidence: published labs, detection rules and configuration-compliance tooling
Next step
Two ways to start a conversation.
A network that needs building, or a role that needs filling. Both reach the same inbox.