Engineering systems that protect digital input security often do not get the attention they deserve until something goes wrong. People forget that there are experts such as Sree Rajya Lakshmi Popury that allow millions of users to mill around corporate services every day with secure authentication. This article will cover who builds secure platforms in India and worldwide.
In July 2025, the US government provided new guidelines to end SMS authentication and replace it with secure methods such as hardware tokens, push notifications, and FIDO2. Based on an estimate from Gartner, upwards of 90% of corporate services rely on vulnerable login methods. This is part of an industry shift away from SMS-OTP, and the phase-out of SMS-OTP is supported by Microsoft, FINRA, and other regulators.
In India, people widely use SMS authentication via a phone, particularly in services like banking, ATM, and government services. The threats associated with SMS are real: phishing, SIM swapping, intercepting phone messages, etc. India is slowly transitioning to a more secure method of authentication, particularly Aadhaar biometrics login, push notifications, FIDO2 solutions, and mobile tokens, specifically in fintech and corporate infrastructure.
Every time we enter an SMS code to log into our account it seems easy, yet it involves multiple complex events. Generating a unique token, verifying it is authentic, and ensuring it is protected from attacks are just a few of the tasks that ensure our accounts are secure. Sree Rajya Lakshmi Popury is a technical leader at Verizon and one of the main engineers for the two-factor authentication platform built on ForgeRock. In her role, she balances the needs of the API, the look and feel of the frontend and security, as well as considering regulations in India and the USA. This article is about what’s behind the development of secure authentication.
On the other side of digital security
Popury started developing the authentication platform at Verizon, being the technical leader there. She is presently working as a technical lead at Verizon, where she originated their authentication platform and now has the overall responsibility for the architecture and development of scalable enterprise platforms by ensuring the security and stability of internal systems. She started off assisting in a client authentication system built on ForgeRock, using multifactor login methods like tokenized email links and secure PIN codes. Over time, Popury became the technical lead, facilitating the front-end and back-end teams to build a secure and single architecture.
“With proven impact and consistent performance, I was promoted to Technical Lead, where I now lead full-stack development teams, actively participate in design discussions, and ensure successful project delivery for B2B applications serving enterprise clients,” Popury commented.
One of the most significant projects was for Verizon Business Group (VBG), an internal platform for the company’s business-to-business (B2B) clients. The systems have complex business logic, workflows, administrative interfaces, and user-level rights. In this project, Popury led the full-stack development team and helped create the flow of processes between the backend and frontend to deliver features at high speed while maintaining security.
“I took on a lead role in the development of platforms supporting Verizon’s enterprise customers. These applications serve clients from various industries and include complex workflows, administrative interfaces, and user provisioning flows. I led development efforts across both frontend and backend layers, collaborating with cross-functional teams to ensure delivery of features aligned with business priorities,” Popury commented on her work for VBG.
In her position at this company, older applications made using not relevant technology were upgraded to the Java and React stacks in order to improve reliability and experience for developers. Sree Rajya Lakshmi Popury works with Verizon Indian engineering centers to incorporate secure development practices and to help scale solutions to other parts of the world. Sree Rajya Lakshmi Popury’s work includes not only the code but the organizational processes. She has input into the design process, architecture review, mentoring, and building bridges between engineering teams, security, and product management.
Engineering practices are being implemented in India and the USA
While working primarily on authentication and enterprise portals, Sree Popury has been a key player in developing the internal enterprise platforms within Verizon based on Akka Play Services and the Vue frontend.js and JavaScript. She performed as an architect and was able to integrate the interests of multiple teams into common principles of security, scalability, and support.
“My main technical leadership was structuring the development of secure and scalable enterprise platforms at the code level and facilitating decision-making between departments,” she said.
As a leader, many of the challenges the organization had experienced moved away from antiquated authentication methods to differing knowledge between frontend and backend teams. Within the systemic approach, she tackled a variety of issues large organizations wrestle with. At the same time, they eliminated duplicated processes amongst the different teams, there was a unified way of coding structure, a shared security structure, and easier scales. The final outcome was less friction, faster releases, and predictable outcomes in complex systems.
Her methods generated specific side effects: reduced time onboarding new developers, reduced technical debt, reliable and more consistent code, and so on. Many teams, including teams from India, now use her methods as a baseline. “My practices are spread through code reviews, architectural discussions, and templates that other developers implement at home. It is very organic: people reach out casually for advice, and then they go implement it however they want, but based on the same principles,” she reflects.
Her approaches hold specific value in the projects constructed that will only ever be contained within the boundary of external display but are fundamental to the business: internal interfaces, admin portals, mechanisms to ensure the secure authoring and administration of the business. Because of Popury’s efficiency, this sort of breadth capability has received trust and malleability. It is set to scale and localize, and it has been updated over time on a professional scale. “Even if I spin a wheel where the user cannot see any of my immediately performed work, it models how the infrastructure works: it won’t fall down, it’s aware of risk, and it’s sitting under control,” highlighted Popury.
Ultimately, Sree Rajya Lakshmi Popury’s impact has become synonymous with Verizon’s strategic resiliency. Its codebase, solutions, and processes are standards that will support the launch of new services in various regions around the world. Now that millions of users are able to freely roam through the internet (and feel safer doing so) thanks to the design and provision of a secured environment for residents of India and beyond, Sree Rajya Lakshmi Popury’s legacy is framed with Verizon’s, and its impact will last long beyond just one application.
Plans for a new engineering transition becomes standard
Popury is still a technical leader at Verizon, where her focus is on building internal B2B platforms and increasing the complexity of authentication architecture. She is part of the modernization of legacy systems and is helping teams move away from legacy stacks. She is also building a centralized approach to security across the enterprise, always keeping in mind the user’s access and security of their data.
Lakshmi Popury, thanks to her development, is highly appreciated in the community, as she is a member of IEEE – an international professional organization of engineers and researchers. In addition, she is a participant of Hackathon Raptors. Based on her many years of experience, the expert has published articles, among them ‘Balancing Usability and Security: A Zero-Touch Authentication Framework for Tiered Risk Actions’ and ‘Behavioral Authentication with Real-Time Anomaly Detection in Enterprise Logins’. These can serve as training and support for the future generation of engineers.
Her future priorities include expanding scalable solutions and enabling collaboration across functional areas. In her plans, Sree Rajya Lakshmi wants to continue to build systems that can not only sustain loads, evolve without chaos, and create dependable environments for millions of users.
As global regulators call for the reduction of vulnerable logins, such as those requiring SMS codes, the work of engineers is becoming increasingly valuable. Experts like Sree Rajya Lakshmi Popury are forging paths from aging and uninspired ideas to meaningful secure authentication systems able to deal with one or more extreme threats globally, from the USA to India. While many are struggling to build unique standardized approaches, Popury and others are focused on technological rigor, scalability, and cross-regional collaboration, which is becoming internal corporate standards for large teams.
