Cyber Threat Hunter

Booz Allen Hamilton•McLean, VA

4d•$69,400 - $158,000•Hybrid

About The Position

The Cyber Threat Hunter develops and executes hypothesis-driven and exploratory hunts to identify sophisticated adversary activity that may evade existing security controls and automated detections. The role combines threat intelligence, adversary tradecraft, the MITRE ATT&CK framework, and analysis of endpoint, identity, network, cloud, and security telemetry. The investigator works across security platforms and large telemetry datasets, tests hypotheses, recognizes patterns, and pivots investigations as evidence emerges. The position collaborates with incident responders, forensic investigators, threat intelligence analysts, and other security specialists. It applies digital forensics and incident response knowledge to assess suspicious activity, reconstruct attacker behavior from multiple sources, and escalate validated compromise findings into incident response. The role also turns investigation lessons into new hunt hypotheses and improved detection opportunities.

Requirements

At least 3 years of experience in threat hunting, incident response, digital forensics, detection engineering, or advanced security analysis, including threat hunting responsibilities.
Experience conducting proactive threat hunts, rather than relying primarily on alerts or automated detections, and analyzing large volumes of security telemetry across multiple EDR/XDR and SIEM platforms.
Experience with one or more major EDR/XDR technologies, such as SentinelOne, CrowdStrike Falcon, Palo Alto Cortex XDR, or Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.
Knowledge of MITRE ATT&CK and the ability to translate adversary techniques into hunt hypotheses and identify necessary telemetry.
Knowledge of endpoint telemetry, including processes, command-line execution, parent-child relationships, persistence mechanisms, services, scheduled tasks, registry and file activity, and operating-system artifacts.
Knowledge of network telemetry, including DNS, HTTP/S, proxy, firewall, connection, and network data.
Ability to correlate activity across endpoint, network, identity, cloud, and data sources to reconstruct adversary behavior.
Ability to investigate incomplete or ambiguous evidence.
Ability to clearly document hypotheses, methodology, findings, evidence, and conclusions.
High school diploma or GED.

Nice To Haves

Experience conducting digital forensic or incident response investigations, including ransomware, hands-on-keyboard intrusions, credential theft, lateral movement, persistence, command-and-control activity, data staging, and exfiltration.
Experience working with cyber threat intelligence and translating intelligence reporting into actionable threat hunts.
Experience developing behavior-based detections from successful threat hunts.
Strong understanding of identity and authentication telemetry, including authentication patterns, privilege changes, credential abuse, and identity-based attack techniques.
Experience with Microsoft Sentinel or comparable enterprise SIEM platforms.
Experience with multiple query languages used by EDR/XDR and SIEM technologies, such as KQL and vendor-specific query languages.
Experience scripting or automating security analysis using Python, PowerShell, or similar technologies.
Knowledge of cloud telemetry and common attacker techniques affecting cloud environments.
Strong analytical, verbal, and written communication skills.
Cybersecurity certifications such as GCFA, GNFA, GCIH, GCIA, GCTI, GDAT, or comparable certifications.

Responsibilities

Develop and execute proactive hypothesis-driven and exploratory threat hunts based on adversary behavior, emerging threats, intelligence, previous incidents, and visibility or detection gaps.
Translate cyber threat intelligence, adversary tradecraft, malware behavior, and known attacker techniques into actionable hunt hypotheses.
Hunt for behaviors, techniques, patterns, and relationships that may indicate sophisticated or previously unidentified adversary activity, beyond indicators of compromise.
Use MITRE ATT&CK to map adversary tactics, techniques, and sub-techniques to hypotheses, telemetry sources, findings, and coverage gaps.
Identify behavioral patterns across systems, users, identities, networks, cloud environments, and time periods.
Develop and maintain reusable hunt methodologies, queries, playbooks, and analytical techniques.
Query, correlate, and pivot across large-scale security telemetry, including complex queries across EDR, XDR, SIEM, and security analytics platforms.
Analyze and correlate telemetry from multiple sources, pivoting across endpoint, network, identity, cloud, and other datasets to reconstruct attacker behavior and identify relationships.
Establish baselines and analyze large datasets for deviations, rare behaviors, unusual relationships, and patterns consistent with adversary tradecraft.
Recognize telemetry limitations and determine what additional data is needed to validate or refute a hunt hypothesis.
Apply digital forensic and incident response lifecycle knowledge when evaluating suspicious activity discovered through hunting.
Use forensic artifacts and telemetry to assess attacker entry, execution, persistence, privilege escalation, credential access, lateral movement, command and control, collection, exfiltration, and impact.
Develop timelines and reconstruct attacker activity using evidence from multiple telemetry sources.
Escalate validated findings into incident response when evidence indicates active or historical compromise.
Translate investigation lessons into new hunt hypotheses and improved detection opportunities.