Suricata Cyber Security Engineer, Senior

Suricata Cyber Security Engineer, Senior

The Opportunity:

We are seeking an experienced Suricata Engineer to join our cybersecurity team. You will leverage your deep technical expertise in Suricata, particularly in understanding and managing its YAML configuration files, and how these configurations integrate and influence the Suricata Intrusion Detection Systems/Intrusion Prevention Systems (IDS/IPS). You will play a critical role in deploying, tuning, and maintaining Suricata within a complex enterprise IT environment, primarily running on Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

A key focus of this role will be tuning Suricata to operate optimally with network interface cards (NICs), ensuring high-performance packet capture and processing while minimizing packet loss and system resource overhead.

Work with us as we secure and protect our nation's most sensitive capabilities.

What You’ll Work On: 

• Designing, deploying, and maintaining Suricata IDS/IPS systems across enterprise networks.

• Developing, reviewing, and optimizing Suricata YAML configuration files to ensure optimal detection capabilities and minimal false positives.

• Understanding and managing the interaction between Suricata’s YAML configuration and its runtime engine, including rule loading, protocol decoding, and logging.

• Tuning Suricata for optimal performance with Napatech NICs, including configuring Direct Memory Access (DMA), RSS queues, interrupt coalescing, and leveraging any NIC-specific acceleration features.

• Collaborating with security teams to integrate Suricata with SIEM and other security monitoring platforms.

• Troubleshooting installation and operational issues specific to Suricata on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, addressing compatibility, kernel module requirements, SELinux policies, and performance tuning.

• Identifying and mitigating common pitfalls encountered when deploying Suricata in large-scale enterprise environments, including package dependencies, system resource constraints, and NIC driver or configuration issues.

• Provide detailed documentation and runbooks for Suricata configuration, tuning  NICs, and deployment processes.

• Staying current with Suricata releases, NIC driver updates, and community best practices for network interface tuning and IDS/IPS performance enhancement.

Join us. The world can’t wait.

You Have:   

• Experience working with Suricata IDS/IPS systems, including hands-on management of its YAML configuration files

• Experience administering Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) systems, including package management, kernel module management, SELinux configuration, and system optimization

• Experience tuning Suricata for high-performance packet capture with advanced network interface cards, such as Napatech NICs, and with NIC-specific features such as DMA, Receive Side Scaling (RSS), interrupt moderation, and offload capabilities, and how to configure them for Suricata

• Experience troubleshooting Suricata’s interaction with NIC drivers and kernel modules in an enterprise environment

• Experience with scripting languages, including Bash or Python, to automate Suricata configuration and deployment tasks

• Knowledge of the Suricata configuration structure, syntax, and how it controls detection rules, logging, and output modules

• Active TS/SCI clearance; willingness to take a polygraph exam

• Associate’s degree and 5+ years of experience supporting IT projects and activities, Bachelor’s degree and 3+ years of experience supporting IT projects and activities, or Master’s degree and 1+ years of experience supporting IT projects, or 7+ years of experience supporting IT projects and activities in lieu of a degree

• DoD 8570 IAT Level II Certification, including Security+ CE, CCNA-Security, GSEC, SSCP, CySA+, GICSP, or CND Certification

• Ability to obtain a DoD 8570 Cybersecurity Service Provider - Infrastructure Support Certification, including CEH, CySA+, GICSP, SSCP, CHFI, CFR, Cloud+, or CND Certification, within 30 days of start date

Nice If You Have:   

• Experience