Cyber Systems Exploitation Researcher

MIT Lincoln Laboratory•Lexington, MA

1d•$116,400 - $182,200

About The Position

The Cyber System Assessments Group performs software and hardware reverse engineering, vulnerability research and discovery, and system exploitation. We develop and prototype cutting-edge capabilities for our operational partners in the U.S. government. We look for, find, and demonstrate cyber vulnerabilities so that vulnerabilities in U.S. systems can be corrected, and so that vulnerabilities in other systems are better understood. Top U.S. Government leadership relies on us for our expert guidance, and our technical role with our U.S. Government sponsors is considered essential to the success of their missions. When you join our team as a Cyber System Exploitation Researcher, you'll be contributing to the development of cyber security tools and techniques. You'll be reverse engineering and exploiting software and hardware systems important to U.S. government operations and critical to the defense of our nation. Your main areas of research will include cyber tool prototyping and technical analysis of offensive or defensive cyber tools and systems, automated vulnerability discovery, reverse engineering, software protection mechanisms, static analysis, and dynamic instrumentation. Once you’re on our team, you will communicate your research to non-domain experts through your writing, public presentations, and hand-on training sessions.

Requirements

MS in Computer Science, Computer Engineering or related discipline or BS and 3+ years of directly related experience
Selected candidate will be subject to a pre-employment background investigation.
Must be able to obtain a Secret level DoD security clearance.
Must be eligible and willing to apply for a Top Secret SCI level DoD security clearance.
Must be able to maintain a Top Secret SCI level DoD security clearance once obtained.
U.S. citizenship is required.

Nice To Haves

Version Control Systems (Git)
Dissassemblers/Decompilers (Ghidra, IDAPro)
Debuggers (WinDbg, GDB)
Programming Languages (C/C++, Python)
Infrastructure/Container Provisioning/Orchestration Systems (Ansible, Kubernetes, Docker)
Network Protocol Analysis (Wireshark, Tcpdump)
Emulator/Virtualization Technologies (VMWare, QEMU)
Operating System Internals
Reverse Engineering of Embedded Systems Firmware, Malicious Code, Mobile Applications, and More
Vulnerability Assessment
Statistics and Metrics
SAT/SMT Solvers
Symbolic Execution
Data-flow Analysis for Compiled Binaries
Binary Intermediate Representations
Binary Translation
Compiler Construction
Anti-debugging/Anti-instrumentation Techniques
Network and Host Security Products

Responsibilities

Perform software and hardware reverse engineering, vulnerability research and discovery, and system exploitation.
Develop and prototype cutting-edge capabilities for operational partners in the U.S. government.
Look for, find, and demonstrate cyber vulnerabilities.
Contribute to the development of cyber security tools and techniques.
Reverse engineer and exploit software and hardware systems important to U.S. government operations and critical to the defense of our nation.
Conduct research in cyber tool prototyping and technical analysis of offensive or defensive cyber tools and systems, automated vulnerability discovery, reverse engineering, software protection mechanisms, static analysis, and dynamic instrumentation.
Communicate research to non-domain experts through writing, public presentations, and hand-on training sessions.