Cybersecurity Consultant · Independent Security Researcher · Cairo, Egypt

Mahmoud Lotfy — Security decisions, made with clarity

I help organisations across the Gulf understand what they are actually exposed to. Four years spanning UK critical national infrastructure and enterprise consulting, turning threat intelligence into decisions leadership can act on, in English and Arabic.

The approach

The most sophisticated stack is useless if leadership cannot see the risk clearly. I treat security not as an IT line item, but as a business decision that deserves clarity.

See. Understand real risk: real attack surface, prioritised by business impact using FAIR. Not a compliance checkbox exercise.
Connect. Turn intel into action: threat actors mapped to MITRE ATT&CK and the Diamond Model, then converted into detections and hunts.
Brief. Boards, in two languages: risk translated into business terms for technical teams, executives and boards, in native English and Arabic.

Experience

Northumbria University (BSc Hons, Computer Networks & Cybersecurity); TalkTalk, as a SOC analyst defending UK critical national infrastructure; SecurityHQ and CYB3R, on enterprise consulting across the Middle East and Africa; and now independent security research, building Excera in Cairo.

Ventures

Excera is an ongoing research project into human risk intelligence for the agentic enterprise: a working prototype that generates a personal, voice-first threat briefing in Arabic and English for every employee, scoped to what they can authorise — moving money, granting access, approving AI agent actions.

Tencast is an Arabic entrepreneurship podcast: long-form conversations with founders and CEOs across the Gulf about what building something actually looks like.

Recent writing

About Mahmoud Lotfy · Advisory · Writing · Tencast · Contact

Mahmoud Lotfy

Cybersecurity Consultant & Independent Security Researcher, Cairo

About Mahmoud Lotfy

Mahmoud Lotfy is a cybersecurity consultant and independent security researcher based in Cairo, Egypt. He works with organisations across the Gulf Cooperation Council region on cyber risk assessment, threat intelligence, governance, and security strategy.

Mahmoud began his career as a SOC analyst at one of the UK's largest broadband providers, where he spent two years on the frontline of security operations, developing expertise in security monitoring, alert triage, and threat detection. He then moved into consulting at SecurityHQ, working across more than seven clients simultaneously on incident response, forensic analysis, threat modelling, and governance frameworks.

He is building Excera, a research project into human risk intelligence for the agentic enterprise. Excera is a working prototype that generates a personal, voice-first threat briefing in Arabic and English for every employee, scoped to what they can authorise: moving money, granting access, approving AI agent actions.

Mahmoud hosts Tencast, an Arabic-language podcast featuring founders and operators across the Gulf in long-form conversations about building businesses in the region.

He holds a BSc (Honours) in Cybersecurity from Northumbria University, where his dissertation examined spear phishing vulnerability and the effectiveness of live attack demonstrations as a training intervention.

Recent Writing

We keep asking the wrong question about AI. AI doesn't have to be correct to be persuasive. Every AI failure reaches the same moment: a person looks at an output, accepts it as credible, and acts on it.
What most organisations get wrong about threat intelligence. Most companies treat threat intelligence as a feed they subscribe to and forget about. The real value comes from understanding how threats specifically apply to your environment.
Why your biggest security risk is probably someone you trust. 83% of organisations reported at least one insider attack in the last year. The breach that actually hurts tends to start much closer to home.
Why the human layer is the hardest security problem to solve. Most security budgets invest heavily in technical controls. The human layer sits near the bottom of the list. That's the wrong order of priorities.
The Gulf has mandated cybersecurity awareness training. Nobody told the training to speak Arabic. Every enterprise in the GCC is now legally required to train its people on cybersecurity. The platforms doing that training were built for someone else entirely.

Contact

Email: mahmoud@excera.live

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mahmoud-lotfy