Researcher, Threat Intelligence - Central Technology - Portland, ME

Your Mission

As a Researcher, Threat Intelligence, you will support Ricochet’s Threat Intelligence team on building and maintaining intelligence tracking adversarial threats targeting Call of Duty.

What you bring to the table

The video game industry and therefore our business is fast-paced and will continue to evolve. As such, the duties and responsibilities of this role may be changed as directed by the Company at any time to promote and support our business and relationships with industry partners. Therefore, this role includes, but is not limited to, the following responsibilities:

• Find, monitor, and investigate emerging threats targeting our games and our players.
• Leverage a variety of internal and external tools to identify threats, assess risks, and produce reports.
• Maintain intelligence records related to cheating, malicious actors, and threats to the company.
• Analyze high volumes of information from various areas the internet and chat platforms.
• Support the day-to-day operations of the game security team and game development teams.
• Reverse engineer cheat binaries, loaders, or obfuscation techniques.
• Map TTPs (Tactics, Techniques, Procedures) across cheat families. Identify new technologies used by cheat developers to attack the game.
• Track infrastructure and develop attribution to threat groups.
• Assist in responding to emergency security incidents.

Player Profile

Minimum requirements:

Experience

• Minimum of 5 years of experience in threat intelligence, open-source intelligence, online research, fraud or anti-cheat investigations, or similar fields.
• Proficiency in programming or scripting languages, as well as Excel and Google Sheets for data organization, analysis, and integration into link analysis tools or SQL databases.
• Experience in developing and maintaining database schemas, producing well-researched reports and presentations tailored to diverse audiences, and handling sensitive information with a need-to-know protocol.
• Skilled in high-volume open-source data collection, analysis, and reporting, including social network analysis, social engineering, and threat actor behavioral analysis.
• Ability to conduct threat assessments and set up secure virtual machines with operational security considerations.

Knowledge & Skills

• Master’s degree or equivalent work experience in Computer Science
• Knowledge of advanced OSINT (open-source intelligence) tools and techniques and adapting research methods for new threats.
• Familiarity manipulating threat intelligence platforms for a video game threat landscape and / or creating and maintaining alerting systems.
• Familiarity with online gaming and the different types of game cheats
• Strong written and verbal communications skills
• Basic understanding of game security, game development, and anti-cheat software

Key Attributes

• Ability to work collaboratively on team projects as well as independently
• Keen attention to detail; organizational thoroughness and heavy research documentation is key
• Able to adapt to a quickly changing environment.
• Passionate about player experience and have an intense thirst for knowledge.

Your Platform

Activision Central Tech works to support our development studios and their titles. Comprised of seven main teams, we have many specialties including big data, privacy and security, motion capture and animation pipeline technologies, graphics, build and infrastructure for studio development and data centers, optimization, systems programming and online services including matchmaking and networking. Central Tech is distributed globally with offices across the U.S., and in Canada, England, Ireland and Japan.

Most of our teams are comprised of both engineering and research talent, allowing us to always have an eye on the future. Our talented engineers help with title development and provide valuable knowledge sharing between studios while our researchers are action-oriented and keep a strong connection with the needs of the game studios.

Central Tech is part of Activision. To learn more about us and our research, please visit us at https://research.activision.com/.

Our World

At Activision, we strive to create the most iconic brands in gaming and entertainment. We’re driven by our mission to deliver unrivaled gaming experiences for the world to enjoy, together. We are home to some of the most beloved entertainment franchises including Call of Duty®, Crash Bandicoot™, Tony Hawk’s™ Pro Skater™, and Guitar Hero®. As a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and products, our “press start” is simple: delight hundreds of millions of players around the world with innovative, fun, thrilling, and engaging entertainment experiences.

We’re not just looking back at our decades-long legacy; we’re forging ahead to keep advancing gameplay with some of the most popular titles and sophisticated technology in the world. We have bold ambitions to create the most inclusive company as we know our success comes from the passionate, creative, and diverse teams within our organization.

We’re in the business of delivering fun and unforgettable entertainment for our player community to enjoy. And our future opportunities have never been greater — this could be your opportunity to level up.