Network Based Systems Analyst III

Farfield will assist the Federal staff within the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Agency (CISA) Hunt and Incident Response Team (HIRT), and National Cybersecurity and Assessment and Technical Services (NCATS) branches, with a broad set of support functions.

The Hunt and Incident Response Team is DHS’s front line when responding to cyber incidents and proactively hunting for malicious cyber activity.

HIRT leverages world-class expertise to lead response, containment, remediation, and asset recovery efforts with its constituents and partners.

HIRT provides two primary functions to its customer. First, HIRT serves as DHS’s primary operations arm in the execution of the asset response mission delegated to DHS.

When any civilian Government agency or critical asset owner operator experiences a cyber-attack, HIRT can provide remote and onsite advanced technical assistance.

Second, HIRT also can be called upon to proactively identify malicious activity, otherwise known as a hunt , specifically focusing on identifying threats from sophisticated threat actors that are often undetected, and in situations beyond the capacity and capability of traditional cyber security tools and techniques.

Requires a Top Secret / SCI clearance and U.S. Citizenship

Responsibilities :

• Assists the Government lead in coordinating teams in preliminary incident response investigations
• Assists the Government lead with interfacing with the customer while on site
• Determines appropriate courses of actions in response to identified and analyses anomalous network activity
• Assesses network topology and device configurations identifying critical security concerns and providing security best practice recommendations
• Assists with the writing and publishing of Computer Network Defense guidance and reports on incident findings to appropriate constituencies
• Collects network intrusion artifacts (e.g., PCAP, domains, URI’s, certificates, etc.) and uses discovered data to enable mitigation of potential Computer Network Defense incidents
• Analyzes identified malicious network activity to determine weaknesses exploited, exploitation methods, effects on system and information
• Collects network device integrity data and analyze for signs of tampering or compromise
• Assists with real-time CND incident handling (i.e., forensic collections, intrusion correlation and tracking, threat analysis, and advising on system remediation) tasks to support onsite engagements

Required Skills :

• U.S. Citizenship
• Must have an active TS / SCI clearance
• Must be able to obtain DHS Suitability
• 5+ years of directly relevant experience in network investigations
• Knowledge of CND policies, procedures and regulations
• Knowledge of TCP / IP protocols
• Strong understanding of standard protocols ICMP, HTTP / S, DNS, SSH, SMTP, SMB, NFS, etc.
• Knowledge and experience of Wifi networking
• Knowledge and experience with network topologies - DMZ’s, WAN’s, etc.
• Experience with Splunk (or other SIEM’s)
• Ability to find, characterize and report signs of infection
• Knowledge of Computer Network Defense policies, procedures, and regulations
• Knowledge of defense-in-depth principles and general attack stages with respect to network security architecture
• Ability to characterize and analyze network traffic to identify anomalous activity and potential threats to network resources
• Ability to identify and analyze anomalies in network traffic using metadata
• Experience with reconstructing a malicious attack or activity based on network traffic
• Experience examining network topologies to understand data flows through the network
• Must be able to work collaboratively across physical locations

Desired Skills :

• Knowledge of network device integrity concepts and methodologies
• Understanding of how to preserve evidence integrity according to standard operating procedures or national standards
• Knowledge of network device integrity concepts and methodologies
• Proficiency with network analysis software (e.g. Wireshark)
• Proficiency with carving and extracting information from PCAP data
• Proficiency with non-traditional network traffic (e.g. Command and Control)
• Proficiency with preserving evidence integrity according to standard operating procedures or national standards
• Proficiency with designing cyber security systems and environments in a Linux and / or Windows environment
• Proficiency with virtualized environments

Required Education :

BS Computer Science, Cyber Security, Computer Engineering, or related degree; or HS Diploma & 4-6 years of network investigations or forensics experience.

Desired Certifications :

• DoD 8140.01 IAT Level II, IASAE II, CSSP Analyst
• DoD 8140.01 GCIA, GCIH, CSSP Analyst / CSSP Incident Responder
• DoD 8140.01 CEH, CSSP Analyst
• SANS GIAC GNFA preferred
30+ days ago