Senior Researcher; Unit

Overview

Our Mission
At Palo Alto Networks everything starts and ends with our mission:

Job Description
Senior Staff Researcher (Unit 42)
Palo Alto Networks - Reston, VA
On-site, Remote
Full-time
Posted 13 hours ago

Job Description
Our Mission
At Palo Alto Networks everything starts and ends with our mission:
Being the cybersecurity partner of choice, protecting our digital way of life.

Our vision is a world where each day is safer and more secure than the one before. We are a company built on the foundation of challenging and disrupting the way things are done, and we re looking for innovators who are as committed to shaping the future of cybersecurity as we are.

We are seeking a Principal Cyber Threat Intelligence Researcher to join our Fusion Intelligence Team (FIT), which is part of the Intel Response Unit within our broader Unit 42 Threat Intelligence organization. FIT s mission is to conduct accelerated threat intelligence collection and analysis with a focus on pivoting from open-source intelligence to internal holdings to contextualize, cluster, and develop insights into emerging and ongoing threat activity.

You will have the opportunity to collaborate with world-class researchers and engineers across Palo Alto Networks, ensuring high caliber intelligence drives additional cyber threat intel research, consultant engagements, customer and executive insights, and product integrations.

As a Principal Researcher on the Fusion Intelligence Team
, your primary responsibilities will include:

• Accelerate OSINT fusion:
  Integrate open source into intelligence workflows by leveraging commercial enrichment sources and threat research to build a more complete cyber threat picture. Conduct accelerated analysis to enhance the depth and breadth of Palo Alto Network s threat intelligence knowledge repository, and bolster our knowledge of threat activity to provide more comprehensive insights for customers.
• Leverage unique data holdings and partner across teams:
  Harness the full weight of the company s unique data holdings, including product telemetry, front line Incident Response (IR) data, and partner information. Utilize these resources to produce and communicate the most unique and valuable insights, enhancing the effectiveness and differentiation of our threat intelligence capabilities.
• Author tactical and strategic intelligence products:
  Produce rapid intelligence products for customers based on unique findings derived from the team s analysis. Partner with other research and product teams to build joint capabilities and ensure findings are leveraged to the full extent. Ensure threat actors, industry, region, and malware profiles are continuously updated on a recurring basis.
• Leverage AI for Analytic Workflows:
  Integrate Generative AI, Notebook
  
  LM, and other artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions across all phases of the intelligence lifecycle to improve analytic workflows. Use and develop new AI solutions to reduce research toil, query existing intelligence holdings, and accelerate report and presentation creation.

Your Experience

• 10-12 years of experience in cyber threat intelligence, threat hunting, or combination of technical and strategic analysis
• Expert-level experience in Cyber Threat Intelligence including actionable knowledge of cyber adversary groups, tactics, and techniques, malware analysis, and hunting methodologies.
• Expert-level understanding of how to extract intelligence from technical data sources (malware, netflow, internet scan data, attack surface topologies, etc.).
• Strong understanding of the cyber threat landscape and able to contextualize how adversary advancement or new campaigns either reflects status quo or is a demonstrated shift.
• Strong experience with hypergraph modeling and clustering process-level details within the context of threat activity.
• Ability to contextualize cyber events, identify how the events fit into a current or historical pattern, the impact on an industry or organization, and tailored defensive recommendations.
• Ability to leverage multiple telemetry types and intelligence sources to generate unique insights into potential threats and associate malicious activity.
• Highly organized with the ability to manage multiple tasks, prioritize effectively, and triage competing demands in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong writing and presentation skills, with the ability to effectively communicate complex threat intelligence information to diverse audiences.
• Proficiency in developing and maintaining scripts to streamline intelligence workflows, enhance efficiency, and improve data accuracy.
• Familiarity with Vertex Synapse preferred.
• Experience with prompt engineering and leveraging Google's AI capabilities to support development of intelligence products.
• Bachelor s Degree or equivalent military experience - an advanced degree such as MS is a plus.

The Team
Unit 42 brings together our world-renowned threat researchers with an…