Application Security & API Penetration Testing

Securing Enterprise Applications & APIs Through Decisive Vulnerability Research

Offensive Security Researcher focused on web application and API security, with hands-on experience identifying and validating real-world vulnerabilities through authorized penetration testing and responsible disclosure. Specializing in high-impact security issues such as authentication bypasses, broken access control, and sensitive data exposure across enterprise, open-source, and academic systems.

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Responsible Disclosures Ledger

Critical vulnerabilities identified and ethically disclosed to enterprise platforms and academic institutions

Platform

Vulnerability Class

CVSS Score

Impact

Shakepay

Critical Authentication Vulnerability in API Endpoint

9.8 Critical

Authentication bypass, unauthorized access

FareHarbor

Critical Information Disclosure - Exposed Live Payment API Keys (Stripe, PayPal, Adyen, dLocal, FileStack)

9.4 Critical

Unauthorized payment operations, financial loss

Large-Scale Booking Platform

Critical Authentication Bypass - Session Token Generation Flaw

8.4 High

Account Takeover (ATO) risk

Origin Protocol

High-Severity API Security Failure - Unauthenticated Data Exposure & CORS Misconfiguration

8.2 High

Financial vault statistics exposed without authentication

Booking.com

Multiple Vulnerabilities - Session ID Confusion, Missing CSRF Protection, Missing Referrer Validation

7.4 High

Session management and CSRF weaknesses

BigBlueButton Greenlight

Sensitive Information Exposure - Misconfigured Server & Publicly Accessible Configuration Files

7.2 High

Exposed API credentials and authentication parameters

AIOU (Allama Iqbal Open University)

Multiple Issues - Reflected XSS, Static CSRF Token Handling, Exposed Admin Interface References

6.8 Medium

Authentication integrity and session security risks

Academic Institutions & Organizations Secured

AIOU

LUMS

NUCES

University of the Punjab

Aspire Colleges

3CX

Origin Protocol

SquareX

GulAhmed

Core Software Tooling

Research-grade offensive security frameworks for vulnerability validation

WAFStrike

Authorization Testing Framework

Research-grade authorization testing framework designed to detect and validate real access control vulnerabilities in web applications. Focuses on identifying issues like broken access control, IDOR, and privilege escalation with high-confidence results.

Key Capabilities:

Logic Gap Detection - Analyzes inconsistencies between WAF filtering and backend enforcement
High-Confidence Results - Eliminates false positives through reproducible validation
Real-World Exploit Validation - Built for penetration testing and bug bounty workflows
Automated Testing - Systematically tests authorization boundaries across application endpoints

View Source Code on GitHub →

WAFStrike Analysis

$ wafstrike --target https://target-app.com --mode auth-validation

[*] Initializing WAFStrike Authorization Testing Framework

[*] Target: https://target-app.com

[*] Mode: Authorization Validation

---

[+] Analyzing WAF filtering rules...

[+] Mapping backend enforcement logic...

[!] Inconsistency detected: /api/admin/users

[✓] Vulnerability confirmed: Broken Access Control (CVSS 8.2)

[*] Generating proof-of-concept...

[✓] Report generated: wafstrike_report_20260516.pdf

Engineering Engagements

Full-scope penetration testing and security research projects

WordPress Security Research

Full-Scope WordPress Penetration Test: Chained Exploitation Leading to Administrative Compromise

Led a black-box penetration test of a production WordPress web application protected by Wordfence WAF. Discovered critical vulnerabilities in the WPBakery plugin, including authenticated Stored XSS and Local File Inclusion (LFI).

Key Achievements:

Vulnerability Chain: Successfully chained Stored XSS + LFI to demonstrate full compromise scenarios
Impact Validation: Admin session hijacking, credential extraction, and privileged access escalation
WAF Assessment: Identified security gaps in Wordfence WAF protection mechanisms
Bypass Techniques: Developed WAF evasion techniques for authenticated endpoints
Deliverables: Executive and technical security report with CVSS-based risk ratings

Academic Security Research

Academic Institution Security Assessments

Conducted responsible security research across major Pakistani academic institutions, identifying critical vulnerabilities in admission systems, authentication mechanisms, and administrative interfaces.

AIOU (Allama Iqbal Open University) Reflected XSS, Static CSRF Token Handling, Exposed Admin References

LUMS (Lahore University of Management Sciences) Application security assessment and vulnerability disclosure

NUCES (National University of Computer and Emerging Sciences) Security research and responsible disclosure

University of the Punjab Infrastructure security assessment

Aspire Colleges Web application security testing

Publications & Research

Technical whitepapers and offensive security research

Medium

Finding Origin IPs Behind Cloudflare During Pentests

May 16, 2026

Published an offensive security whitepaper focused on identifying exposed origin infrastructure behind reverse proxies and CDN environments during authorized penetration tests. The research covers reverse proxy trust validation, backend timeout analysis, SSRF-based origin validation, and infrastructure fingerprint correlation techniques used in real-world security assessments.

Penetration Testing CDN Security Infrastructure Enumeration SSRF Offensive Security

Read Full Publication →

Verified Compliance Credentials

Professional certifications and specialized training programs

🛡️

Cyber Threat Management

European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA)

Issued: January 2026

🔐

Cybersecurity Essentials

EU4Digital Facility, European Union

Issued: December 2025 | Expires: October 2028

🔍

Vulnerability Management Foundation

Qualys

Issued: September 2024

⚡

Certified Network Security Practitioner

The SecOps Group

Issued: November 2024 | ID: 10233311

🎯

Certified Network Pentester

The SecOps Group

Issued: October 2024 | ID: 8787025

💻

Web Application Hacking

Cybrary

Issued: June 2023

📚

CS50's Introduction to Computer Science

Harvard University

Issued: January 2023

🗄️

Advanced Topics in SQL

Stanford Online

Issued: March 2022

🔒

ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Information Security Associate™

SkillFront

Verification ID: 92068255735788

💰

Cybersecurity in Finance Certification

Simplilearn SkillUp

Verification ID: 10186837