My professional life
Parallel to my duties as a professor, I have been dedicated to developing and expanding professional expertise as a cybersecurity advisor and conducted several penetration tests in the last twenty years.
Both as a professor and as a professional, much of my teaching, technical commitment and research have been focused on several realms of cybersecurity like malware analysis, vulnerability identification and risk assessment.
Cybersecurity and I
One central focus is on implementing cybersecurity controls. This involves two broad ranges of activities:
Conceptual: Observing and analyzing an organization’s cybersecurity operations. Based on it, cybersecurity policies and procedures are developed to ensure the security of the organization’s information systems. Analyzing an infrastructure requires a holistic approach. This cannot be done solely with coding & scripts. Never!
Operative: Monitoring and responding to cybersecurity incidents. This task requires conducting investigations and implementing appropriate remediation steps. Proactive threat hunting methodologies based on penetration testing contribute to planning and decision making in this phase.
Some words about my background
Both my personal and professional life are cosmopolitan. Born and raised in Iran, I majored in Computer Science at the University of Shiraz/Iran with focus on digital system design. Shortly afterward, I came to Germany and studied informatics at the Hamburg University. I continued my studies and completed a doctorate (PhD) at the same university.
Prior to joining my current university job as a professor in 2002, I had worked in the software industry as a project manager for cyber security and enterprise software projects. These positions were in the USA, Germany and Paris, France. Among them:
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- technical project manager for developing a real time, interactive application for MPEG-2/DVB decoders (Pay-per-View) in cooperation with a variety of teams, in Germany & France.
- direct management & controlling of a substantial project within the software development life cycle and all relevant aspects of cybersecurity during the development & deployment of the results. (Hamburg, Germany)
- security specifications for a new version of a leading application as well as planning & execution of security functional testing and security vulnerability testing for the product (Denver, CO)
- technical assessment and analysis of existing cyber security measures to develop customized solutions and strategies for vulnerability management and optimizing threat mitigation (Hamburg, Germany and New York, NY)
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