Maqsood Ahmad
Security Researcher Pentester at GuardSquare
Leuven, Flemish Brabant, Belgium
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolMaqsood Ahmad is a security researcher and pentester with 11 years of experience focused on mobile application protection, currently strengthening Guardsquare’s DexGuard and iXGuard offerings from Leuven, Belgium. He brings deep academic chops—a PhD in Mobile Security—and a history of postdoctoral research across European institutions, bridging rigorous research with practical hardening techniques. At Guardsquare he contributes to core tooling and defenses, including hands-on work on ProGuard’s optimizer and obfuscator, demonstrating an uncommon mix of low-level code transformation expertise and applied attack/defense thinking. Known for refactoring and integrating critical passes in ProGuard, he quietly improves foundational build-time protections that many Android apps rely on. Maqsood combines teaching and research experience with industry-grade pentesting, making him adept at translating novel attack discoveries into robust, production-ready countermeasures.
11 years of coding experience
2 years of employment as a software developer
KTH Royal Institute of TechnologyDoctor of Philosophy - PhD, ICT - Mobile Security, Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, ICT - Mobile Security at Università degli Studi di TrentoBSc Computer Systems Engineering, BSc Computer Systems Engineering at NWFP UET PeshawarNorwegian University of Science and Technology
English, Urdu, Pashto
Github Skills (6)
javas10
obfuscation10
build-tools10
proguard10
java10
optimization10
Programming languages (3)
Github contributions (5)
Guardsquare/proguard
Dec 2021 - Jan 2022
ProGuard, Java optimizer and obfuscator
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:2 reviews, 11 commits, 4 pushes in 22 days
Contributions summary:Maqsood primarily worked on improving and maintaining the ProGuard Java optimizer and obfuscator. Their contributions focused on refactoring and integrating various passes within the ProGuard tool, including modifications to the GsonOptimizer, Obfuscator, and Shrinker passes. The user also added and refined several helper classes to support code transformations, demonstrating a solid understanding of the ProGuard's architecture. These changes included adding and porting key classes like Initializer and Targeter, suggesting a focus on the core functionality and maintenance.
optimiserbytecode-manipulationandroidoptimizerobfuscator
maqsoodahmadjan/flowdroid-docker
Nov 2017 - Nov 2017
Contributions:7 pushes in 1 day
flowdroiddocker-imagedockerdocker-container
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