Principal Security Researcher

Security represents the most critical priorities for our customers in a world awash in digital threats, regulatory scrutiny, and estate complexity. Microsoft Security aspires to make the world a safer place for all. We want to reshape security and empower every user, customer, and developer with a security cloud that protects them with end to end, simplified solutions. The Microsoft Security organization accelerates Microsoft’s mission and bold ambitions to ensure that our company and industry is securing digital technology platforms, devices, and clouds in our customers’ heterogeneous environments, as well as ensuring the security of our own internal estate. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world.

The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) is recruiting a Principal Security Researcher looking to hone their skills. MSTIC provides unique insight on threats to protect Microsoft and our customers and is responsible for delivering timely threat intelligence across our product and services teams.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities

• Conducting triage and compressive analysis of known and suspected malicious applications, documents, network traffic and artifacts in support of MSTIC’s threat actor pursuit mission, services, and products.

• Reverse engineering & binary analysis to include dynamic and static malware analysis.

• Tactical software development to support triage and analysis of datasets and information associated with APT activity and behavior as well as APT artifact analysis.

• Contributing host- and network-based detection signatures/scripts to a variety of Microsoft products and services.

• Maintaining up to date and in-depth technical understanding and knowledge of the latest offensive and defensive Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs).

• Maintaining up to date and in-depth technical knowledge of adversary capabilities, infrastructure, and techniques that can be applied to define, develop, and implement techniques to discover and track the adversaries of today and identify the attacks of tomorrow.

• Maintaining up to date and in-depth knowledge across all critical elements and common data types used in threat intelligence analysis, including malware used in targeted adversary campaigns; host and log forensics including methods of data collection and analytic techniques; and network forensics including common protocols and how those are used in adversary operations. 

Embody our Culture  &  Values 

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

      • 7+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, modeling, cybersecurity, and/or anomaly detection

              o OR Doctorate in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science or related field. 

• 2+ years of experience in reverse engineering malware that are associated with APT or financially motivated groups
• 3+ years experience analyzing malicious desktop, mobile and web applications developed in common programming languages such as x86/x86-64 Assembly, ARM, C, C++, C#, Visual Basic, PowerShell, Ruby, Python, ActionScript, ASP, Java, JavaScript, HTML, etc.
• 3+ years experience using commercial and open-source malware analysis tools and platforms such as debuggers, disassemblers, decompilers, sandboxes and virtualization solutions.
• Knowledge of Windows Operating Systems (OS) internals and Windows API 
• Demonstrated experience identifying and subverting anti-disassembly, anti-decompilation, anti-debugging and anti-virtualization/emulation and anti-forensic techniques and methodologies

Other Requirements:

• Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings:
• Microsoft Cloud Background Check:This position will be required to pass the Microsoft background and Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.

Preferred Qualifications:

• 8+