Wireless Security Engineer - GTRI - CIPHER - Open Rank

Overview:

The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit, applied research division of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech). Founded in 1934 as the Engineering Experiment Station, GTRI has grown to more than 2,900 employees, supporting eight laboratories in over 20 locations around the country and performing more than $940 million of problem-solving research annually for government and industry. GTRI's renowned researchers combine science, engineering, economics, policy, and technical expertise to solve complex problems for the U.S. federal government, state, and industry.   

Georgia Tech's Mission and Values

Georgia Tech's mission is to develop leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. The Institute has nine key values that are foundational to everything we do: 

1. Students are our top priority.
2. We strive for excellence.
3. We thrive on diversity.
4. We celebrate collaboration.
5. We champion innovation.
6. We safeguard freedom of inquiry and expression.
7. We nurture the wellbeing of our community.
8. We act ethically.
9. We are responsible stewards.

Over the next decade, Georgia Tech will become an example of inclusive innovation, a leading technological research university of unmatched scale, relentlessly committed to serving the public good; breaking new ground in addressing the biggest local, national, and global challenges and opportunities of our time; making technology broadly accessible; and developing exceptional, principled leaders from all backgrounds ready to produce novel ideas and create solutions with real human impact.

Project/Unit Description

GTRI is searching for a Junior Wireless Security Engineer to work in the Cyber EW Techniques Branch within the Embedded System Vulnerability Division (ESVD) in the Cybersecurity, Information Protection, and Hardware Evaluation Research (CIPHER) Lab. The ESVD team has deep expertise in reverse engineering, vulnerability discovery, and the development and demonstration of RF and network-based techniques to gain unauthorized access to and/or exploit various types of information networks. Analysis efforts focus on wireless and embedded devices such as radios, modems, routers and embedded controllers comprising various military and Industrial Control System (ICS) networks. The Cyber EW Techniques Branch focuses on developing RF-delivered cyber techniques and on developing next generation EW systems supporting this mission.

Job Purpose

Wireless security engineers will develop integrated cyber and electronic warfare capabilities to conduct information operations against threat systems, and will support Test and Evaluation activities to help protect US systems from similar attacks.

Key Responsibilities

• Assist with demonstration of over the air techniques to gain unauthorized access to and/or exploit wireless communication networks. Demonstrate mitigation techniques to protect systems.
• Assist in the development of SDR algorithms to (1) reverse engineer signals, (2) demodulate and decode RF signals and (3) to generate similar RF signals
• Research capabilities, implementation methods and security features of device under test to help in determining functionality and potential weaknesses. Commonly evaluated devices include communications devices such as radios, modems, and routers.
• Contribute to technical reports and presentations

Additional Responsibilities

• Employ hardware/firmware/software reverse engineering techniques to search for potential vulnerabilities accessible through RF apertures.

Required Minimum Qualifications

• Coursework or demonstrable working knowledge of wireless/RF/digital communications concepts such as analog/digital modulation, EM spectrum, attenuators/amplifiers, filters, FEC, and interleaving.
• Strong interest in code development for software defined radios (SDRs)
• Interest in software reverse engineering using IdaPro, Ghidra, Binary Ninja, or similar
• Experience programming in one or more of the following languages: C/C++, Python, Rust

Preferred Qualifications

• Active Top Secret Clearance
• 3 months experience using SDR frameworks such as GnuRadio, RedHawk, xMIDAS, or similar
• Ability to develop software and debug processes on Linux

Travel Requirements

<10% travel

Education and Length of Experience

This position vacancy is an open-rank announcement. The final job offer will be dependent on candidate qualifications in alignment with Research Faculty Extension Professional ranks as outlined in section 3.2.1 of the Georgia