Vulnerability Researcher

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Approval of remote and hybrid work is not guaranteed regardless of work location. For additional information on remote work at Penn State, see Notice to Out of State Applicants. ​POSITION SPECIFICS​We are searching for a self-motivated Vulnerability Researcher to join our Cyberspace Operations Research Department in Reston, VA of the Applied Research Laboratory (ARL) at Penn State University.  The Cyberspace Operations Research Department provides technical expertise in adversarial tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to support system evaluation and provide security hardening support to various sponsors.  

ARL is an authorized DoD Skill Bridge partner and welcomes all transitioning military members to apply.

You will:

Research cutting edge techniques and technologies for system exploitation

Leverage expertise in reverse engineering, vulnerability research, and software development to address established needs and investigate solutions to emerging requirements

Apply software engineering best practices to create proof-of-concept tools and configure test environments to perform demonstrations to sponsors and partners

Assist the Cyberspace Operations Research Department Head in maintaining relationships with sponsors through on-site technical discussions, preparation and presentation of technical materials, and project-related correspondence

Provide process enhancement for technical functionality evaluation, vulnerability analyses, cyberspace operations engineering, and penetration testing projects

Apply project management principles and methods to the leadership of tasks or projects

Provide guidance to lower-level engineers to foster professional growth

Additional responsibilities for higher level position includes:

Understand broad strategic objectives and contribute to them; nurture and maintain relationships with major customers/grantors of external research and development grant funding

Identify grant/project follow-on work and persuade customers/grantors to fund; impact customer decisions and strategies

Initiate new project concepts and seek funding; develop technical proposals and make presentations to customers/grant sponsors

Mentor department staff in the development technical, project, and business development skills

Required skills/experience areas include:

Documented application of reverse engineering and vulnerability testing tools (e.g. Ghidra/IDA, Kali Linux, Angr/AFL++, QEMU/Unicorn, etc)
Reverse engineering, vulnerability research, malware analysis, and/or CNO tool development

Computer networking fundamentals, Windows and
* NIX operating systems, X86(64) and ARM or MIPS architectures

Cyber operations architecture and software engineering practices

Software programming, programming languages, and development environments (to include at a minimum C, Java, or Python)
Ability to express technical information clearly and concisely in documents and presentations for senior leaders to successfully comprehend and leverage for decision making

Active government security clearance at TS/SCI level with eligibility for special accesses

Preferred skills/experience areas include:

Cybersecurity exploit development…