I’m a computer engineer in Beirut. I build and test systems with an attacker’s model of them in mind, and I’ve stopped thinking of building and breaking as two different jobs.
I spent six years teaching at the American University of Beirut, from first-year programming to the ethical-hacking labs, and I’ve worked on cyber threat intelligence at Potech and infrastructure test engineering at Murex. I hold the CompTIA Secure Infrastructure Expert stack and rank in the top 1% on TryHackMe.
Two threads run through everything since 2019: building things, and taking them apart to see how they fail. They have been converging for a while.
building securing both at once
A B.Eng. in Computer and Communications Engineering.
Undergraduate teaching assistant for Python, programming fundamentals and electric circuits: 150-plus students over two years.
A graduate course, taken as an undergraduate. The term paper benchmarked Windows Server, Ubuntu and CentOS under DDoS attack; it’s on Zenodo.
Python modules for passive reconnaissance across rogue app stores and social platforms, packaged in Docker for the team’s deep- and dark-web collection.
The Python and Twitter-API pipeline behind Lebanon’s Economic Policy Uncertainty index, from raw tweets to weekly and monthly series.
Coding coach for the web and mobile development lab through the spring; then a degree with Distinction, a 100 in Ethical Hacking, and my name in the acknowledgments of the published index report.
Two sections of the web and mobile development lab, the same lab I had taken as a student two years earlier.
Networks and Security, on a graduate fellowship. Started instructing the Ethical Hacking labs the same term.
More than 400 tests for internal tooling and a .NET proof of concept for HashiCorp Vault: building and securing in the same codebase. Earned TryHackMe’s SAL1 the same year, and finished six years of teaching in the fall.
Finished with an A in DevSecOps and Infrastructure Automation. In May, NASA’s Vulnerability Disclosure Program recognized a vulnerability I had found and reported.
Scheduled for the summer. Then whatever comes next.
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Murex, Beirut
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American University of Beirut, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
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American University of Beirut, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
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American University of Beirut, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
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American University of Beirut
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Potech Consulting, Beirut
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American University of Beirut, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
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American University of Beirut
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American University of Beirut
May 2026
A letter of recognition from NASA’s Senior Agency Information Security Officer for identifying a previously unknown vulnerability and reporting it through the agency’s disclosure program.
August 2023
Research report by M. Barakat and S. Altug, Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, AUB. I’m acknowledged by name for building the Python code behind the index.
December 2021
An empirical comparison of three server operating systems under denial-of-service load, written for Internet Security at AUB with Vincent Nakhle, Ghida Al Hajj Chehade and Hussein Al Moussawi.
Also listed on my ORCID record.
Near-instant arithmetic in finite fields up to GF(2571), the sizes elliptic-curve cryptography runs on. Python and Tkinter.
Built during the collapse of the Lebanese pound: a platform that published parallel-market exchange statistics and matched people who wanted to trade.
My final-year project, built for a community I spent eight years in. It collects, validates and stores the organization’s records, with authentication, authorization and fine-grained permissions designed in from the start.
This site, and the short links on it. The page is one HTML file; the links run through a small Cloudflare Worker I wrote, one file and one redirect table; and the domain is set up to current standards, with IPv6, DNSSEC, HTTPS and RPKI. It scores 100% on Internet.nl’s website test and is listed in their Hall of Fame.
CompTIA certifications
CompTIA stackable certifications
CSAP
CNVP
CNSP
CSAE
CSIEThe top of CompTIA’s stackable path: Security+, CySA+, PenTest+ and SecurityX, which along the way also earn the Security Analytics Professional (CSAP), Network Vulnerability Assessment Professional (CNVP), Network Security Professional (CNSP) and Security Analytics Expert (CSAE) stackables.
Ranked in the top 1% of TryHackMe users worldwide. Profile
Python. Profile
Coursera. Certificate
If you’re hiring, working on something in security or infrastructure, or just want to compare notes on a problem, I’d like to hear from you.
