Malware Researcher; Remote

About Cracken.ai

Cracken is a fast-growing Silicon Valley-based startup built by elite nation-state and commercial operators who defended critical cyber infrastructure during the war in Ukraine, researched AI and cybersecurity at MIT and Kyiv Polytechnic, and led teams at Apple, Google, Palo Alto Networks, Hacker One, DIU, Comcast, HP, and more.

We tame Cracken, an AI Agent for Cybersecurity with human-in-the-loop. Our flagship product is an agentic AI copilot that drastically scales cyber assessments for enterprises and governments.

We are expanding globally and seeking a talented Malware Researcher to strengthen our threat intelligence capabilities and enhance our AI Agent's understanding of the evolving malware landscape.

Malware Research & Analysis:

• Perform static and dynamic analysis of malware samples ranging from commodity threats to sophisticated APT campaigns
• Conduct reverse engineering of malicious binaries, scripts, and documents using industry-standard tools
• Research emerging malware families, attack techniques, and evasion mechanisms (including polymorphic malware)
• Track threat actor TTPs and map findings to frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK

Detection & Automation:

• Build AI‑based automation tools and pipelines for large‑scale malware processing and analysis

AI Integration & Research:

• Collaborate with AI engineers to integrate malware intelligence into Cracken's agentic framework
• Help develop automated malware analysis capabilities within our AI Agent

Intelligence Production:

• Produce comprehensive technical reports and threat assessments
• Be active in the offensive AI community, sharing insights and staying ahead of adversarial techniques
• Present findings to internal stakeholders and contribute to product development
• Monitor threat landscape trends and provide strategic threat intelligence insights

Technical Expertise:

• 5+ years of experience in malware analysis, reverse engineering, or threat research
• Knowledge programming languages (C/C++)
• Understanding of various operating systems internals (Windows, Linux, macOS, etc.), file systems, processes
• Mobile malware analysis experience
• Experience with virtualization and sandboxing environments for dynamic analysis

Security Knowledge:

• Solid understanding of malware techniques: persistence mechanisms, polymorphic malware, C2 communications, evasion tactics
• Knowledge of cryptographic algorithms commonly used by malware

Nice to Have:

• Experience with agentic AI in cybersecurity
• OSINT and dark web research capabilities