Zakir Durumeric
Co-Founder And CEO at Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Palo Alto, California, United States
Summary
🤩
Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolZakir Durumeric is a security-focused entrepreneur and academic who co-founded and leads Censys while serving as an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Stanford, bringing 16 years of experience studying and defending the Internet at scale. He builds measurement-driven systems—contributing core tooling to widely used open-source projects like ZMap/ZGrab and ZDNS—to empirically uncover vulnerabilities in protocols and ecosystems and to design more resilient defenses. His work spans hands-on backend development (notably advancing UDP scanning, DNS lookup performance, and TLS cipher testing) to public policy and industry advising, including board and DARPA study roles. Based in Palo Alto with a PhD from the University of Michigan, he combines deep research rigor with product leadership and an unusual focus on turning Internet-wide measurement into practical security operations and policy impact.
16 years of coding experience
Ph.D., Computer Science and Engineering, Ph.D., Computer Science and Engineering at University of MichiganBachelor of Science - BS, Mathematics and Computer Science, Bachelor of Science - BS, Mathematics and Computer Science at University of Iowa
Github Skills (17)
udp10
tls1210
testing10
c-programming10
tls1310
network-programming10
security10
mtls10
network-scan10
go10
dns10
tcp10
libtls10
packet-analysis10
su10
Programming languages (7)
Github contributions (5)
zmap/zdns
Jul 2016 - Apr 2022
Fast DNS Lookup Library and CLI Tool
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:1 release, 158 reviews, 223 commits in 5 years 10 months
Contributions summary:Zakir primarily worked on implementing and refining core DNS lookup functionalities. They added new modules for specific DNS record types (e.g., CNAME, SOA, SPF, DMARC, NS, AAAA, PTR, MX, and ANY). They also focused on improving the overall structure and efficiency of the lookup process, including introducing a sharded cache and handling TCP connections for better performance. Furthermore, the user addressed issues with error handling and incorporated features such as the ability to specify local addresses.
dns-lookupcorednsdnscliscanner
zmap/zmap
Aug 2013 - Jan 2023
ZMap is a fast single packet network scanner designed for Internet-wide network surveys.
Role in this project:Back-end Developer
Back-end DeveloperContributions:2 releases, 162 reviews, 495 commits in 9 years 6 months
Contributions summary:Zakir's commits primarily focus on enhancing the UDP probe module within the ZMap project. Their contributions include fixing issues in the Redis output module and expanding the functionality of the UDP probe module by integrating UDP payload templates. The user also implements a test harness and contributes to the development of core validation and processing logic within the UDP scanning component, demonstrating a focus on improving the scan's capabilities.
network-scannerscanneripv4networkingsurveys
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