Cyber Defense Analyst 2 (CDA2) with Security Clearance

About the role

Generate cybersecurity cases (including event's history, status, and potential impact for further action) and route as appropriate.

Leverage knowledge of commonly used network protocols and detection methods to defend against related abuses.

Apply cybersecurity and privacy principles to organizational requirements (relevant to confidentiality, integrity, availability, authentication, non-repudiation).

Perform advanced manual analysis to hunt previously unidentified threats.

Conduct PCAP analysis.

Identify cyber-attack phases based on knowledge of common attack vectors and network layers, models and protocols.

Apply techniques for detecting host- and network-based intrusions.

Working knowledge of enterprise-level network intrusion detection/prevention systems and firewall capabilities.

Understand the foundations of a hardened windows network and what native services and protocols are subject to abuse.

Familiarity with fragmentation of network traffic and how to detect and evaluate fragmentation related attacks in raw packet captures.

Conduct network - traffic, protocol and packet-level - and netflow analysis for anomalous values that may be security-relevant using appropriate tools.

Understand snort filters and how they are crafted and tuned to feed IDS alerting.

Understand system and application security threats and vulnerabilities to include buffer overflow, SQL injection, race conditions, covert channel, replay and return-oriented attacks, malicious code and malicious scripting.

Analyze malicious activity to determine weaknesses exploited, exploitation methods, effects on system and information.

Perform event correlation using information gathered from a variety of sources within the enterprise to gain situational awareness and determine the effectiveness of an observed attack.

Familiar with indications of Command and Control (C2) channels and what strategies attackers use to bypass enterprise defenses from a compromised host.

Responsibilities

• Generate cybersecurity cases (including event's history, status, and potential impact for further action) and route as appropriate.
• Leverage knowledge of commonly used network protocols and detection methods to defend against related abuses.
• Apply cybersecurity and privacy principles to organizational requirements (relevant to confidentiality, integrity, availability, authentication, non-repudiation).
• Perform advanced manual analysis to hunt previously unidentified threats.
• Conduct PCAP analysis.
• Identify cyber-attack phases based on knowledge of common attack vectors and network layers, models and protocols.
• Apply techniques for detecting host- and network-based intrusions.
• Understand the foundations of a hardened windows network and what native services and protocols are subject to abuse.
• Understand fragmentation of network traffic and how to detect and evaluate fragmentation related attacks in raw packet captures.
• Conduct network - traffic, protocol and packet-level - and netflow analysis for anomalous values that may be security-relevant using appropriate tools.
• Understand snort filters and how they are crafted and tuned to feed IDS alerting.
• Understand system and application security threats and vulnerabilities to include buffer overflow, SQL injection, race conditions, covert channel, replay and return-oriented attacks, malicious code and malicious scripting.
• Analyze malicious activity to determine weaknesses exploited, exploitation methods, effects on system and information.
• Perform event correlation using information gathered from a variety of sources within the enterprise to gain situational awareness and determine the effectiveness of an observed attack.
• Familiar with indications of Command and Control (C2) channels and what strategies attackers use to bypass enterprise defenses from a compromised host.

Requirements

• Four (4) years of demonstrated experience as CDA in programs and contracts of similar scope, type, and complexity required.
• A technical bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university may be substituted for two (2) years of CDA experience on projects of similar scope, type, and complexity.
• One (1) year of demonstrated and practical experience in TCP/IP fundamentals.
• One (1) year of demonstrated experience with tcpdump or Wireshark.
• Two (2) years of demonstrated experience using security information and event management suites (such as Splunk, ArcSight, Kibana, LogRhythm).
• Two (2) years of demonstrated experience in network analysis and threat analysis software utilization.
• Two (2) years of demonstrated experience maintaining or managing Cloud environments such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services (AWS), using tools like Microsoft Sentinel.

Qualifications

• Requires DoD 8570 compliance with CSSP Analyst baseline certification.
• Requires Information Assurance Technical (IAT) Level I or Level II certification.
• Requires Computing Environment (CE) certification.
• Requires successful completion of the Splunk software training course "Fundamentals 1."

Benefits

• Active Security Clearance with appropriate Polygraph.

Pay

Estimated annual salary: $136,922

Schedule

N/A