Ashar Aziz (Urdu: اشعر عزیز; born 1959) is a Pakistani–American electrical engineer, business executive, and philanthropist.
[8][9] He arrived in the United States as a student, having gained admission into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Engineering (MIT).
[4] Prior to entering MIT, he completed two years of foundation studies at the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Turkey during the mid-1970s.
[4][8] At around the same time, Aziz began studying the risks stemming from highly stealthy and self-propagating malware systems, and the threats they posed to future cybersecurity infrastructures—a problem he first discovered in the U.S. Department of Defense archives.
[19][20] As the inventor of FireEye's malware protection system, Aziz currently holds over 80 patents relating to various cybersecurity technologies, including in the fields of network security, cryptography, and data center virtualization.
[22] In August 2016, it was announced that Aziz had tendered his resignation from FireEye in order to spend more time with his family, and focus on solar energy distribution projects in developing countries.
[22] However, a FireEye source dismissed this notion, stating the company would operate under its new CEO and continue to provide solutions using its multi-vector virtual execution (MVX) technology.
[22] Aziz is the founding CEO of SkyElectric Inc., a company which seeks to provide affordable and sustainable solar energy solutions.
In February 2017, he pitched solar energy as the solution to Pakistan's electricity crisis and launched his company's operations in the country.
[23] Aziz's father, Asghar Butt, was a journalist, writer and playwright, who served as the deputy editor of the Pakistani broadsheet The Nation.