Cyber Network Defense Analyst

About the role

The DHS’s Hunt and Incident Response Team (HIRT) secures the Nation’s cyber and communications infrastructure. HIRT provides DHS’s front-line response for cyber incidents and proactively hunts for malicious cyber activity. Castalia Systems performs HIRT investigations to develop a preliminary diagnosis of the severity of breaches. Castalia provides HIRT remote and onsite advanced technical assistance, proactive hunting, rapid onsite incident response, and immediate investigation and resolution using host-based, network-based and cloud-based cybersecurity analysis capabilities. Contract personnel provide front line response for digital forensics/incident response (DFIR) and proactively hunting for malicious cyber activity. Castalia Systems is seeking a Cyber Network Defense Analyst (CNDA) to support this critical customer mission.

Responsibilities

• Characterize and analyze network traffic to identify anomalous activity and potential threats to network resources
• Coordinate with enterprise-wide cyber defense staff to validate network alerts
• Document and escalate incidents (including events’ history, status, and potential impact for further action) that may cause ongoing and immediate impact on the environment
• Perform cyber defense trend analysis and reporting
• 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
• Provide daily summary reports of network events and activity relevant to cyber defense practices
• Receive and analyze network alerts from various sources within the enterprise and determine possible causes of alerts
• Provide timely detection, identification, and alerting of possible attacks/intrusions, anomalous activities, and misuse activities and distinguish these incidents and events from benign activities
• Use cyber defense tools for continual monitoring and analysis of system activity to identify malicious activity
• Analyze identified malicious activity to determine weaknesses exploited, exploitation methods, effects on system and information
• Determine tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) for intrusion sets
• Examine network topologies to understand data flows through the network
• Identify and analyze anomalies in network traffic using metadata
• Conduct research, analysis, and correlation across a wide variety of all source data sets (indications and warnings)
• Validate intrusion detection system (IDS) alerts against network traffic using packet analysis tools
• Identify applications and operating systems of a network device based on network traffic
• Reconstruct a malicious attack or activity based off network traffic
• Identify network mapping and operating system (OS) fingerprinting activities
• Assist in the construction of signatures which can be implemented on cyber defense network tools in response to new or observed threats within the network environment or enclave
• Notify designated managers, cyber incident responders, and cybersecurity service provider team members of suspected cyber incidents and articulate the event’s history, status, and potential impact for further action in accordance with the organization’s cyber incident response plan

Requirements

• 5+ years of direct relevant experience in cyber defense analysis using leading edge technologies and industry standard cyber defense tools
• BS Computer Science, Cyber Security, Computer Engineering, or related degree; or HS Diploma & 7-9 years of network investigations experience
• Experience successfully developing and deploying signatures
• Experience detecting host and network-based intrusions via intrusion detection technologies (e.g., Snort)
• Experience implementing incident handling methodologies
• Experience implementing protocol analyzers
• Experience collecting data from a variety of cyber defense resources
• Experience reading and interpreting signatures (e.g. snort)
• Experience performing packet-level analysis
• Experience conducting trend analysis

Qualifications

• Strong math and science background
• Experience with Carnegie Mellon SiLK tool suite

Desired Qualifications

• ArcSight (or other SEIM solution) and Python programming experience would be ideal

Physical Requirements/Work Environment

Normal office environment.

Travel

Less than 5%.

Company Description

Castalia Systems is a proven business partner providing mission critical solutions to the Federal Government. We provide cutting edge solutions from Securing and Managing Data to Systems Engineering and Development. Castalia Systems is a pioneer in Artificial Intelligence Design and Application.

Compensation

At Castalia Systems, we provide you with opportunities and choices and support your total well-being. Our benefits include: Medical, dental, vision coverage, 401k matching, generous PTO, paid holidays, professional training opportunities, and even pet insurance to ensure your furry friends are cared for too. All regularly scheduled employees working at least 30 hours per week are eligible to participate in Castalia Systems’ benefit programs. Individuals that do not meet the threshold are only eligible for select offerings, not inclusive of health benefits.

Disclaimer

Castalia Systems is an equal employment opportunity and affirmative action employer and strives to comply with all applicable laws prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, age, national origin, or ancestry, physical or mental disability, veteran status, marital status, HIV-positive status, as well as any other category protected by federal, state, or local laws. All such discrimination is unlawful, and all persons involved in the operations of the company are prohibited from engaging in this type of conduct.