Principal Security Researcher

Do you have a passion for helping Microsoft’s clients defend themselves against targeted exploitation? Are you interested in being intimately involved in the latest, cutting-edge developments in the security industry and having a direct impact on the security of all Microsoft customers? Do you want to be on the front lines of helping our customers go toe-to-toe against advanced adversaries? Are you interested in a fast-paced job full of new opportunities? If that resonates, consider joining us as a Security Researcher on the Global Hunting, Oversight, and Strategic Triage (GHOST) team! We are looking for an experienced Principal Security Researcher with a Digital Forensics and Incident Response background to join our team to perform threat hunts, assist with investigations, develop threat intelligence, and to cultivate investigation best practices into Microsoft tooling and products. Researchers will support a global team to identify and catalog new attacker TTPs, victims, and deliver customer notifications to protect worldwide enterprise customers and empower customers to protect themselves via constantly improving Microsoft products.

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond. In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day. Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond. In alignment with our Microsoft values, we are committed to cultivating an inclusive work environment for all employees to positively impact our culture every day.

• Leading technical workstreams during investigations and guiding others to conduct deep analysis of attacker activity in on-premises and cloud environments.

• Identifying potential threats, allowing for proactive defense before an actual incident 

• Presenting technical findings and recommendations to improve customers’ cybersecurity posture and performing threat intelligence knowledge transfer to prepare customers to defend against today’s threat landscape 

• Defining the requirements for and assisting in the development of production threat hunting tools, automations, and new capabilities.

• Driving investigation strategy, develop new hunting methodologies, and influence security products and practices across multiple teams

• Mentoring others, helping the team to upskill in terms of both hard and soft skills.

• Extensive and demonstrated professional experience in Threat Hunting, Incident Response (DFIR), Threat Intelligence, or Security Research.

• Experience investigating sophisticated cyber threats, including APT or nation-state activity.

• Extensive experience working with forensically collected data (and tooling), security telemetry, logs and SIEM platforms.

• Expertise in KQL or equivalent query languages (Splunk, Humio, Kibana, etc.).

• Experience with EDR and security monitoring technologies such as Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Sentinel, CrowdStrike, or similar platforms.

• Experience managing or conducting security review of Microsoft Azure tenants, Microsoft 365 and Entra ID.

• Proven ability to analyze security data to investigate attacker activity, and derive identify indicators of compromise (IOCs), indicators of activity (IOAs), and TTPs.

• Experience and familiarity with the collection of Digital Forensic data, as well as case management and forensic analysis tooling such as X-Ways Forensics.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English and ability to work in a global team environment

• Ability to obtain and maintain a UK Security Clearance.

Preferred qualifications: