Zero Trust Before Launch: How One Lead Engineer Secures a Platform Used by 150,000 Advisors

Muhammad Zeeshan treats security as a layer of the platform and not as a step before release.

A travel booking platform holds names, passport details, itineraries and card data, and every one of those is a target. Muhammad Zeeshan is the engineer who owns how that data is protected on a platform that sells through more than 150,000 independent advisors in the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland.

Zeeshan is a Technical Lead and AI and Enterprise Software Engineer with Media Mind Management LLC, a Florida company, and he works from Gujranwala, Pakistan. When the platform’s booking engine was rebuilt starting in March 2019, security was written into the requirements next to features. The old system lacked fraud checks, 3D Secure transactions and compliance measures. The rebuild brought in PCI DSS compliance, accessibility to ADA standards and penetration testing obligations.

His description of the infrastructure has five parts. Access follows a Zero Trust model built on AWS IAM. The PCI DSS framework governs how payment data is handled. AWS Shield and a web application firewall defend the perimeter in layers. AWS CloudWatch watches the systems in real time, and automated checks look for vulnerabilities before an attacker does. The goal is to protect sensitive personal data while keeping the experience smooth for advisors who book all day.

Zeeshan also carried the operating work. He controlled server deployment for the platform and set the cybersecurity rules for it, and his remit includes disaster recovery and card industry compliance. He has also investigated escalated insider threat incidents.

His credentials back this up. He holds the AWS Certified Cloud Practitioner, AI Practitioner and Developer Associate certifications. He is an IEEE Senior Member, he has completed 44 peer reviews across eight publications from IEEE, Springer Nature, PLOS ONE and Elsevier, and he has reviewed conference papers on fraud detection, digital payments and secure banking architecture.