Vulnerability Researcher Intern – 2025

Date Posted:

2024-10-04

Country:

United States of America

Location:

VA128: 4075 Wilson Blvd, Arlington 4075 Wilson Boulevard Suite 500, Arlington, VA, 22217 USA

Position Role Type:

Onsite

You have been redirected to RTX’s career page as we have recently transitioned from RTX to become a standalone company, which provides us with greater autonomy and opportunities for growth. As a prospective employee of Nightwing, you’ll have the chance to contribute to our continued success and shape the future of our cybersecurity, intelligence, and services offerings.

Previously part of a leading Fortune 100 company and headquartered in Dulles, VA; Nightwing became independent in 2024 but continues to support the nation’s most mission impactful initiatives.

When we formed Nightwing, we brought a deep set of credentials and an unfaltering commitment to the mission. For over four decades, our team has been providing some of the world’s most technically advanced full-spectrum cyber, data operations, systems integration and intelligence support services to the U.S. government on its most important missions.

At Nightwing, we value collaboration and teamwork. You’ll have the opportunity to work alongside talented individuals who are passionate about what they do. Together, we’ll leverage our collective expertise to drive innovation, solve complex problems, and deliver exceptional results for our clients.

About Nightwing

The Nightwing business provides technically advanced full-spectrum cyber, data operations, systems integration and intelligence mission support services to meet our customers’ most demanding challenges. Our capabilities include cyber space operations, cyber defense and resiliency, vulnerability research, ubiquitous technical surveillance, data intelligence, lifecycle mission enablement, and software modernization. Nightwing brings disruptive technologies, agility, and competitive offerings to customers in the intelligence community, defense, civil, and commercial markets. Nightwing CODEX (Cyber Offense and Defense Experts) Solutions bring together an elite team of mission-focused industry experts who are well known for their ability to overcome the most advanced technical challenges. Where pushing the limits of our technical ability is the norm. Occasional failure does not deter us.  True innovation comes from trying new things and seeing what works.

Job Summary

This position is an onsite role.

Nightwing is looking for interns interested in a career focused on offensive cyber practices as a Vulnerability Researcher.  Nightwing’s goal is to teach interns offensive cyber practices that they would not encounter in everyday normal curriculum.  Ultimately interns at Nightwing learn to analyze systems to understand how they work and how they behave when they break. Candidates must be able to play both sides of the fence, both developing and defeating new and advanced security techniques. Projects are undertaken in small teams in close coordination with mentors to maximize growth potential. All our engineers write code, but many of our engineers spend as much time reverse engineering and taking systems apart and building new ones. A typical day can involve studying disassembly or writing Python to audit a piece of C++ code.

Responsibilities to anticipate

• Growth in knowledge of target being researched
• Regular documentation on research results
• Evaluation of research results
• Modifications to research tools and directions
• Productizing successful research to deliver to a customer

Required Qualifications

• Experience with C or C++
• Must be enrolled in a Bachelor’s or Master's degree program in Science, Technology, Engineering, or Mathematics (STEM) typically Computer Science, Computer Engineering or related area
• Please upload a copy of your most recent transcripts with your resume when applying to this requisition. Include your cumulative GPA and projected graduation date on your resume
• The ability to obtain and maintain a U.S. government issued security clearance is required. U.S. citizenship is required, only U.S. citizens are eligible for a security clearance

Preferred Qualifications

• Understanding of OS Internals (any major OS)
• Experience reading or writing assembly (x86, x64, ARM, PPC, MIPS, SPARC, 68k, or others)
• Understanding of network protocols (TCP/IP stacks, wire-level protocols, RF communications, BGP, routing protocols, or others)
• Understanding of exploit mitigations such as DEP and ASLR
• Experience using reverse engineering tools such as IDA Pro, HexRays, Ghidra, Binary Ninja, or objdump
• Experience using debuggers such as gdb, WinDbg, OllyDbg
• Experience