Atomic Habits
James Clear
The first self-help book I ever read. It showed me how small changes, ones that barely feel like anything, can change the whole trajectory of a life, and how the cues behind our habits are built into everything around us.
Most of what I do comes back to one question: how do you tell the real thing from a convincing copy?
I’m Aryan Kalra, 24, a PhD scholar at IIT Kanpur’s Wadhwani School of AI & Intelligent Systems. In research, that question is threat intelligence. At Crypsis, it is finding the clones of a brand before its customers do. On Cyber Genie, it is explaining why a password that leaked two days ago still matters.
The three sides keep each other honest. Research slows me down. The company speeds me up. The channel makes me explain both in plain words.
My desk in the Faculty Building, IIT Kanpur, drawn from a photograph, October 2026.
Research at IIT Kanpur
A PhD in cybersecurity at the Wadhwani School of AI & Intelligent Systems. The direction is threat intelligence; the exact problem is still open.
PhD in cybersecurityOngoing
Direction, threat intelligenceOpen
Publications, listed here once acceptedNone yet
Questions I keep coming back to
What makes a detection system hold up outside the lab?Research
How do you keep academic rigour at startup speed?Both
If you are hiring, collaborating or reviewing, my CV comes by email.
Request my CV
Building Crypsis
₹50 lakh
1st runner-up at the Cyber Security Grand Challenge 2.0, run by DSCI with the Ministry of Electronics and IT, in February 2026.
Why it’s called Crypsis
Crypsis is the biologist’s word for not being seen: the moth that looks like bark, the harmless butterfly that copies a poisonous one, as in the plate Henry Walter Bates drew in 1862. Online, the same trick is played on people. A cloned banking app. A fake support number. A lookalike shop wearing a real brand’s logo.
Our product, Crypsis Trinetr-I, looks for those copies. It detects the fake and cloned ecosystem that grows around a brand and turns what it finds into threat intelligence the brand can act on.
Crypsis Trinetr-I, clone detectionLive
Law enforcement agencies and large brandsToday
Protection for individualsNext
If you invest in security, run a brand that gets impersonated, or want to build this with us, I’ll send you the deck.
Cyber Genie on YouTube
Entertainment first, security underneath. Tech and security stories with a film’s pacing, for people who don’t work in the field.
From here it’s one video every two weeks. Next: micro nuclear reactors, and a series called “WTF Happened To…”.
Subscribe on YouTube 154 subscribers so far
Before: MIT Manipal
A BTech in Electronics & Communication at Manipal Institute of Technology, where electronics turned into security.
BTech, Electronics & CommunicationMIT Manipal
Off duty
Away from the desk: waterfalls, courts, beaches, and the odd costume party.
Right now: a video every two weeks, Crypsis, and choosing the problem my PhD will be about.
Books I recommend
Five I’d put in anyone’s hands; pick a cover to see why. The list will grow, and right now I’m reading The Da Vinci Code.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Mark Manson
It taught me what bad values look like, and gave me the jolt of realising that I am responsible for everything that affects me. It also taught me that emotions are feedback: I can choose to act on them, or not. Get past the edgy title and it is the biggest goldmine on this list.
Who Moved My Cheese?
Spencer Johnson
One of my shortest reads. It shows how a stuck mindset leaves you standing where the cheese, the opportunity, has already run out; why, even with cheese in hand, you should keep scouting instead of settling into a comfortable cheese castle; and how much fun it is to run into the uncertain maze.
Angels & Demons
Dan Brown
For my fiction-loving friends. It holds you by the neck on every page while it walks you through ancient Rome and Vatican City. After it, I feel I have already been there, alongside Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra.
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Ben Horowitz
For the startup enthusiasts. I can’t pick a single takeaway, because there are golden nuggets all over it: when to sell your company, how to give feedback, the difference between wartime and peacetime CEOs, when to take the lead bullets. Along with The Subtle Art, it is the one I will keep coming back to.