Threat Researcher; Unit

Our Mission

At Palo Alto Networks®, we’re united by a shared mission—to protect our digital way of life. We thrive at the intersection of innovation and impact, solving real-world problems with cutting-edge technology and bold thinking. Here, everyone has a voice, and every idea counts. If you’re ready to do the most meaningful work of your career alongside people who are just as passionate as you are, you’re in the right place.

In order to be the cybersecurity partner of choice, we must trailblaze the path and shape the future of our industry. This is something our employees work at each day and is defined by our values:
Disruption, Collaboration, Execution, Integrity, and Inclusion. We weave AI into the fabric of everything we do and use it to augment the impact every individual can have. If you are passionate about solving real-world problems and ideating beside the best and the brightest, we invite you to join us!

This role is remote, but distance is no barrier to impact. Our hybrid teams collaborate across geographies to solve big problems, stay close to our customers, and grow together. You will be part of a culture that values trust, accountability, and shared success where your work truly matters.

As a Threat Hunting Researcher in Unit 42, you will help multinational organizations stay one step ahead of adversaries and cyber threats. You will serve as a critical line of defense by providing coverage for core threat hunting activities and investigating hunting leads based on IOCs, threat intelligence, and internal detections. By collaborating with and guiding customers through urgent hunting-related requests, you will play a vital role in responding to suspected security incidents and ensuring timely escalation of high-impact events.

• Serve as a critical line of defense by providing coverage for core threat hunting activities.
• Collaborate with and guide customers by responding to urgent hunting-related requests and suspected security incidents.
• Execute threat hunting reports and workflows, investigate results, and support timely customer reporting.
• Investigate hunting leads based on IOCs, threat intelligence, and internal detections.
• Monitor the threat landscape and prepare initial context for emerging campaigns to enable deeper investigations.
• Ensure timely and appropriate escalation of major or high-impact security events to leadership.
• Provide support and assistance to the Managed Detection and Response (MDR) team for hunting-related activities.
• Provide ongoing feedback on findings, reports, queries, and workflows to support continuous improvement.

• 3+ years of relevant cybersecurity experience in threat hunting, incident investigation, SOC analysis, detection engineering, DFIR, or MDR.
• Strong understanding of the evolving threat landscape, attack tools, tactics, techniques, and networking/security fundamentals.
• Experience investigating suspicious activity, security incidents, or targeted threats across endpoints, networks, identity, and cloud.
• Ability to work independently, make sound investigative decisions, and elevate findings requiring additional review.
• Experience handling customer-facing security requests, including clear written communication, investigation summaries, and recommendations.
• Understanding of attacker behaviors, including attack vectors, execution, persistence, privilege escalation, lateral movement, and exfiltration.
• Background in writing, modifying, or executing detections, hunting queries, or log-based investigations.
• Familiarity with organizational cybersecurity measures, including protective tools, response actions, and remediation techniques.
• Excellent written and oral communication skills in English,…