Principal Analyst

The Principal Analyst will provide deep-level analysis for client investigations utilizing customer-provided data sources, audit, and monitoring tools at both the government and enterprise levels. The Principal Analyst will work closely with our Technology Engineers, Architects, and Threat Analysts to service customers. 

How you'll make an impact

• Operate independently in a geographically dispersed team, while maintaining situational awareness and keeping the team up to date  

• Perform security monitoring and incident response activities across the networks, leveraging a variety of tools and techniques  

• Detect incidents through proactive “hunting” across security-relevant data sets  

• Thoroughly document incident response analysis activities  

• Review investigations conducted by more junior analysts to ensure quality standards are met  

• Develop new, repeatable methods for finding malicious activity across the networks  

• Provide recommendations to enhance detection and protection capabilities  

• Regularly present technical topics to technical and non-technical audiences  

• Develop and follow detailed operational processes and procedures to appropriately analyze, escalate, and assist in the remediation of information security incidents  

• Prioritize multiple high-priority tasks and formulate responses/recommendations to customers and team members in a fast-paced environment  

• Provide assistance to other security teams  

• Continually develop new technical skills and push overall team capabilities forward  

• Engage with and mentor other team members  

• Work with other teams on major engineering and architecture initiatives   

• Be innovative with their understanding of attack methodologies, malware analysis, malicious toolkits, and how those may manifest within various security technologies  

• Advanced proactive threat hunting   

• Understands advanced adversary emulation concepts   

• Advanced use case design for insider threat, operational, threat detection and response   

• Review of defensive and detective controls to reduce client attack surface 

What we’re looking for

• 9+ years operational experience assessing, reviewing, and remediating infrastructure vulnerabilities, CVE’s, and risks.  

• Knowledge of third-party software vulnerabilities, security threat landscape, especially network and server threats 

• Knowledge of cyber security threats and risks, vendor computing environments, basic systems, and network technologies.  

• Experience with and understanding of CVE’s and CVSS scores  Knowledge of compensating controls and mitigating factors.  

• Knowledge of Information Security frameworks, guidelines, and standard methodologies.  

• Knowledge of the Windows and / or Linux operating systems  

• Knowledge and understanding of Cybersecurity controls and logging and monitoring tools.  

• Ability to expertly interact with all levels of personnel  

• Excellent verbal and written communication skills  

• Strong in problem solving and analytical skills  

• Ability to work on multiple projects by prioritizing and results oriented approach  

• Good teammate with flexibility required for support operations  

• Be well versed in the cyber threat landscape; have an advanced understanding and knowledge of what tactics and techniques are being used by adversaries; have an advanced understand and knowledge of what security controls and/or telemetry data is available to detect these tactics and techniques; and be familiar with cyber security incident response terminology, processes, and techniques.  

• Moderate to complex investigations (multiple tools) including endpoint, UEBA, public cloud, SAAS and packet analysis  

• Security use case design recommendations for threat detection  

• Threat response activities such as quarantining host and other common response playbook activities  

• Proactive threat hunting using multiple client tools  

• Process development and documentation  

• Application of threat intelligence to improve detection and response capabilities  

• Extensive experience with the MITRE @ttack framework and associated tactics  

• Extensive alert triage and endpoint investigations using technologies such as EDR  

• Phishing analysis  

• Malware analysis (does not include reverse engineering)  

• MITRE attack framework expertise and understanding of common attack tactics used by threat actors  

• Provide recommendations on tuning of security detection platforms and use cases to improve accuracy of detection  

• DL NUMBER - Driver License, Valid and in State Upon Hire required

• CISSP Certified Information Systems Security Professional Upon Hire preferred

• Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) Upon Hire preferred

• Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) Upon Hire preferred

• This role is Work From Office role and 24/7 shifts

What you can expect from Optiv

• A company committed to championing Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion through our Employee Resource Groups.
• Work/life balance
• Professional training resources
• Creative problem-solving and the ability to tackle unique, complex projects
• Volunteer Opportunities. “Optiv Chips In” encourages employees to volunteer and engage with their teams and communities.
• The ability and technology necessary to productively work remotely/from home (where applicable)

EEO Statement

Optiv is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants for employment will be considered without regard to race, color, religion, sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, pregnancy, age 40 and over, marital status, genetic information, national origin, status as an individual with a disability, military or veteran status, or any other basis protected by federal, state, or local law.

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