I'm Maila Zahra. I work on AI and cybersecurity: LLM security, AI agents for security operations and vulnerability analysis, and evaluating how AI systems hold up under attack.
Top 4
BSides Fargo CTF (USA), 200+ teams
Top 5
Pakistan at Black Hat MEA 2024
5
Research papers and op-eds published
4
Security roles across SOC, research and engineering
I research where AI and cybersecurity meet: securing LLMs and AI agents, and using them to make security work better. I build and evaluate security AI agents, study where they fail, and design security challenges that test AI models. My goal is research that makes real software more secure.
Education
Air University, Islamabad · Sep 2021 – 2025
Ranked 9th in Pakistan in Cyber Security programs
Thesis
Phishing and Brand Protection: Safeguarding Your Organization in Cyberspace Using AI/ML
Major coursework
Research interest
Research interest
From agent frameworks to SIEM pipelines to the standards that tie them together.
Security operations, research and engineering roles across academia and industry.
Sep 2025 – Present
Islamabad, Pakistan
Air University Islamabad
Sep 2025 – Present
Islamabad, Pakistan
Air University Islamabad
Jun 2024 – Mar 2025
Remote
Cytomate, Qatar (Doha)
Jun 2023 – Sep 2023
Pakistan
Siber Kuza — NASTP
Offensive AI, agentic tooling for security operations, brand protection, deception systems and quantum-era readiness.
Generates vulnerability-specific exploitation agents at runtime through meta-prompting, covering 50+ vulnerability types. Agent traces are analyzed in LangSmith to find where agents fail and improve them.
Researching and building security AI agents with LangGraph, LangSmith and prompt engineering, plus an AI harness that drives IDS/IPS and honeypot systems.
Python tool that monitors brand mentions across social platforms and forums, using NLP and sentiment analysis to flag impersonation, phishing and fake profiles with real-time alerts.
Low-interaction honeypot simulating vulnerable services to capture malicious traffic, with real-time logging and alerting for threat intelligence and SOC training.
Analysis of NIST PQC standardization and what it means for security policy, cryptographic risk assessment, migration planning and governance in critical sectors.
Contributions to cyber law and policy, anti-forensics, smart-city infrastructure and post-quantum cryptography.
2024
B. Saleem, M. Ahmed, M. Zahra, F. Hassan, M. A. Iqbal, Z. Muhammad
International Cybersecurity Law Review, Springer, vol. 5, pp. 533–561
2024
N. Ullah, M. Zahra, B. Saleem, M. Haseeb, M. Mughal, Z. Muhammad
International Conference on Engineering & Computing Technologies (ICECT), IEEE
2023
B. Saleem, M. M. Zia, M. Zahra, F. Ahmad, Z. Muhammad
IEEE International Conference on IT and Industrial Technologies (ICIT)
2023
M. Zahra, Z. Muhammad
Cyber Defense Magazine
2024
Z. Muhammad, M. Zahra
Scholars Strategy Network
International conferences attended
ICECT (IEEE)
NUML University, Islamabad · May 23, 2024
ICIT (IEEE)
FAST University, Islamabad · 2023
Outcompeted 200+ teams in exploit development.
55th overall in advanced penetration testing challenges.
Offensive security and vulnerability exploitation.
Cybersecurity innovation and teamwork.
Specialized in OSINT, outperforming multiple teams.
Recognized for cybersecurity contributions, Aug 2024 – present.
Certifications
Certified in Governance, Risk and Compliance (CGRC)
ISC2 — Red Teamers
Cybersecurity Essentials
Cisco Networking Academy · Jul 2024
Leadership
Vice President
Air University Cyber Security Society (AUCSS)
Sep 2024 – Apr 2025
Management Lead
Air University Cyber Security Society (AUCSS)
Aug 2023 – Mar 2024
Security Lead
3rd Annual IEEE Cyber Warfare Conference, Air University
Dec 7–8
Social Media Coordinator
Air University Air Tech Event ’24
Apr 2024
Open to roles and collaborations in SOC engineering, AI security research and GRC.
Download my CV