Online users are facing a new scale of security challenges as automated tools and AI-driven techniques reshape how digital information is accessed and misused. The result is a landscape where data can move quickly and unpredictably, and where security teams must anticipate risks before they surface.
Malya Jain is one of the people working to stop that. As a cybersecurity engineer, she leads efforts to uncover and seal the different ways in which data can fall into the wrong hands.
Her focus is on preventing large-scale unauthorized scraping, the automated extraction of information from social platforms. Currently working as part of Meta’s Anti-Scraping team, she’s working to keep user data protected by constant and vigilant design.
A Calling For Cybersecurity
Malya Jain didn’t originally plan to become a cybersecurity expert; it happened in the course of her first job. Fresh out of her undergraduate program, she joined KPMG as a consultant, working between India and London to test IT general controls and application controls for global clients.
But what began as a corporate role quickly got her interested in how something like an overlooked permission or a small misconfiguration could expose entire systems, and Jain was hooked by the challenge of stopping those failures from happening.
In hindsight, the pull toward cybersecurity had been there all along. She’d always excelled in computer science and IT subjects at school, yet it wasn’t until that first job that her interest sharpened into conviction. “Even in school, I was keen on computer science, but I realized cybersecurity was my calling only after that first job,” she says.
She later completed a Master’s degree in Information Systems from Santa Clara University, with a focus on cybersecurity, as well as an advanced cybersecurity certificate program through Stanford University’s School of Engineering, training that strengthened the technical framework behind her growing practical expertise. As she explains, “This commitment to formal education gives me a unique edge. It allows me to not just react to threats, but to understand the theory behind them, stay current with cutting-edge security research, and apply that knowledge to harden real-world systems.”
Learning What It Takes to Secure the Modern Web
After completing her studies, Jain transitioned into hands-on cybersecurity roles, joining ServiceNow as a cybersecurity analyst intern in 2017. Even at that early stage, she immersed herself in the meticulous work that defines the field: analyzing alerts, looking into suspicious activity, and mapping the inner workings of large-scale enterprise systems.
Her aptitude quickly earned her a permanent position as a staff digital forensics engineer, a role she held for three years. There, she took on deep-dive investigations into security incidents, insider risks, and anomalous system behavior. She built and refined processes for evidence collection, digital chain-of-custody, and malware analysis with the intent of making sure every trace of activity came with a verifiable story. Beyond solving immediate crises, she also played a part in strengthening the company’s long-term defenses by improving detection systems and incident tracking tools, enabling faster and more accurate threat recognition across the enterprise.
In late 2021, Jain pivoted from digital forensics to real-time response, joining Block, the fintech company formerly known as Square. There, she worked on the front lines of live security operations, tackling active threats to financial systems with minimal margin for error. Her ability to trace attacks end to end made her invaluable in diagnosing incidents quickly and coordinating remediation across technical and leadership teams.
While her time at Block was relatively brief, the work she carried out sharpened her composure under pressure and her understanding that cybersecurity is as much about speed and clarity as it is about code.
Reinforcing Data Risk and Privacy
Over the past three years, Jain has been using her skills as part of Meta’s anti-scraping initiative. This team was born as the company sought to improve its defenses against “unauthorized scraping,” which is the unauthorized collection of information from websites and apps. Her mandate was to uncover where such data could be collected at scale and close those doors without locking out legitimate use.
A major approach she and her co-workers use involves penetration testing. Jain and her team simulate how an attacker would behave, probing features that could be exploited over time. She likens the challenge to inspecting a skyscraper for cracks invisible from the ground: one fissure can weaken the whole structure.
Jain also partners with machine-learning specialists to explore models that attempt to surface meaningful behavioral patterns in traffic. These efforts focus on signals such as timing, frequency, and request volume to better understand how different interaction styles emerge online — ranging from typical user exploration to more automated activity.
Her team also coordinates with the global bug-bounty community, an alliance of security researchers who voluntarily search for vulnerabilities. When a researcher finds a bug, Jain’s group verifies and mitigates it. The cooperation embodies her belief that openness can strengthen security: sharing knowledge about threats helps prevent them from spreading unseen.
Her View On The Age Of AI
Working at multiple cybersecurity roles across her career has given Jain a front-row view of how AI is changing how cybersecurity looks, on both sides of the fight. In her personal opinion, what once took attackers days or weeks to script can now be done in minutes with the help of generative models, with studies showing they can achieve accuracy rates as high as 98% — meaning defenders must evolve their tactics just as fast. “Attackers are finding more novel ways to scrape,” she explains, “and AI is helping them to do that.”
For Jain, the challenge isn’t about not using this technology but understanding how to use it in a responsible manner, establishing and enforcing ethical boundaries while matching adversaries’ technical pace.
Jain also shares these insights at industry conferences. Through her talks and research, she hopes to raise awareness about the growing need for the technology driving the next era of security to do so without eroding trust.
“Both sides are using the same tools,” she says, “so the real difference comes down to who uses them with integrity.”
Establishing Safer Privacy Standards
Beyond the growing technical requirements, Jain views privacy as a collective responsibility. The introduction of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, legislation that enforces how companies collect data, marked, in her words, “a sign that people are caring more about what happens to their data.”
Users now demand consent before providing companies with information, and companies face real accountability if they fail to provide it — a change she greatly welcomes. ”People are really keen on making sure that they can only share data with others if they have provided consent,” she explains.
Her vision of cybersecurity is one rooted in transparency: a web in which users understand the exchanges they make and the protections standing behind them. The ultimate success, she says, would be a world where security fades into the background because trust is built into every interaction.
Until then, Jain aims to continue expanding the digital methods that keep the data of millions safe, and she hopes the industry can further strengthen its support for the experts who do this work every day: “In a time when cyber threats evolve faster than most companies can adapt, security experts are essential. They are the unsung guardians — investigating, mitigating, responding, and building resilience.”
To Malya Jain, cybersecurity has never been just a technical discipline; it’s a sustained practice of vigilance, persistence, and protection. Her career reflects that belief. As global platforms continue to scale and threats become more complex, she sees her work (and the work of countless professionals like her) as increasingly vital to keeping people and systems safe.
