Although being runner-up sucks, we decided to let the world know that Tranchulas Cyber Ranges was named as runner-up at P@SHA ICT Awards 2011 in Security Application Category. Now in its 8th year, the P@SHA ICT Awards is flagship ICT industry event.
In case you missed it - Tranchulas Cyber Ranges on YouTube
We nominated Tranchulas Cyber Ranges for P@SHA ICT Awards in security application category. Not sure if we’ll get the award but kudos to Talib and Aruba who made a great video in just two hours. Check out Tranchulas Cyber Ranges on YouTube.
Tranchulas team members Kate and Laura volunteered to join the clean-up operation following the aftermath of the London Riots. With brooms in hands, they joined hundred of Londoners to clean up the capital.
(ISC)² ® (pronounced as “ISC squared), the world’s largest not for profit organization in educating and certifying information security professionals throughout their careers has announced the honorees for its fifth annual Asia-Pacific Information Security Leadership Achievements (ISLA) Program. Through ISLA, (ISC)2 publicly recognizes the ongoing commitment by information security leaders throughout Asia-Pacific. (ISC)², administrator of the CISSP®, has nearly 80,000 members in more than 135 countries.
Mr. Zubair Khan, CEO of Tranchulas made his way to the Honorees of ISLA 2011. He has been honored by ISLA in the category of Information Security Practitioner along with practitioners from Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan and India. Professionals were nominated in three distinct categories: Managerial Professional for Information Security Project(s), Senior Information Security Professional, and Information Security Practitioner. Mr Zubair Khan, together with other international honorees, will be recognized for their achievements in a prestigious ceremony on 26 July 2011 in Jakarta, Indonesia.
Cyber warfare and other facets of information security are a focus of Zubair’s research work. He has been a presenter at renowned security conferences including Hack.lu Luxembourg, Hack In The Box Malaysia and Infosek Slovenia.
Dudeeeee this exploit is wicked ...
Häagen-Dazs ice cream after ARP flooding the network
BackTrack5 finally running on all machines
Very popular class
Nasir during his training
Recently, Tranchulas held a 3 Day Ethical Hacking Training in Kuwait (22 – 24 May, 2011) which was a part of The 3rd Kuwait Info Security Conference & Exhibition. One of Tranchulas senior Penetration Testers, Mr. Nasir was the trainer for the course. The attendees for the training belonged to different backgrounds ranging from Indian to Arabs which made for quite a diverse crowd.
The conference itself featured key speakers from the information security world including Mr. Hisham Dale (President, Cloud Zero), Mr. Nader Henein (Blackberry Security Advisor, Research in Motion), Mr. Kalle Bjorn (Director Systems Engineering Middle East, Fortinet) and Mr. Leonetti Gianni (Head of Middle East Operations, Omnisec). It was held under the patronage of Mr. Abdullatief S. Al-Suraie who is the Director General of the Central Agency for Information Technology (CAIT). The topics discussed at the conference varied from discussing the best practices in information security industry to how companies can operate in a secure borderless world. We met many security professionals, all of whom, brought a different point of view as well as a different skill set to the industry. Moreover, at the end of the day in conferences like these, the information you get about how the market works in different geographical regions is priceless! 
Last weekend I gave a talk at TEDx Kinnaird in Lahore. Technology, Entertainment and Design or “TED” is a nonprofit organization devoted to ideas worth spreading. They generally hold annual talks and conferences to inspire people through inspirational speakers and their ideas to change the world.
The theme of the conference was “Rethinking Us” which revolved around the fact that the people in this day and age, especially the youth, have to rethink their options and make most of the resources they have to make not only themselves stronger, but Pakistan as well. To quote them, it was about “(looking at) the endless possibilities that reveal themselves to you when you let yourself believe”. It was quite refreshing to see the many talented young speakers such as Natasha Noorani who explained her point of view of changing stereotypes through photography, Sonya Rehman, who highlighted the importance of citizen journalism and Younas Chowdhry, who, with the help of his very talented crew, performed a play called “Machine” signifying how we need to rise above our daily grind and appreciate everything we have.
Other than that, the conference featured Jazib Zahir, who emphasized the need of games in our curricular, Mehreen Kasana, an active blogger and doodler; Elaine Alam, from FACES Pakistan and Faisal Mehmood who has three patents to his name in engineering.
I talked about how I converted my idea of “Ethical Hacking” into business. It was a bit unorthodox idea for the audience but it went down well (Thankfully 
). The idea has not only made people look at the so called “hackers” in a different light but also, how the conventional job barriers in IT can be broken. I know, first hand, that the job itself is more strenuous and stressful than glamorous, but at least the occupation name goes down well with the ladies!
Kudos to Areej Mehdi and rest of TEDxKinnaird team for a well organized event.
In a giant leap towards making Pakistan’s cyberspace safer, we are pleased to announce that Tranchulas has partnered with National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) which is one of Pakistan’s largest universities and among top 300 universities of world to form Pakistan’s first ever cyber security research center called “NUST – Tranchulas Center for Cyber Security”. Tranchulas will provide funding and design the center to enhance the security and integrity of information systems, technologies, and content by facilitating research and education, which translates into the fact that we want to remain one step ahead of malicious hackers threatening our national cyber security. The center will respond to the need to advance the state-of-the-art in information security and to produce more trained information security professionals to meet the growing demand for skill in the area.
Tranchulas had previously established the CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team) Pakistan in response to the hacking of the numerous Pakistan’s government websites by the Indian Cyber Army. CERT Pakistan will also be operating through NUST-Tranchulas Center for Cyber Security. With the collaboration of NUST-SEECS faculty, we will be educating the industry and students about the threats of tomorrow. We will be conducting training courses and annual conferences for this purpose and anyone interested can share their ideas or contact us for further information!