About the Position:The Staff Threat Intelligence Researcher is an expert individual contributor aligned closely with the Adversary Operations team. This role leads rapid, intelligence-driven investigations into emerging threats, active campaigns, and high-impact adversary activity, using internal managed detection and response (MDR), incident response (IR), endpoint, network, cloud, identity, malware, infrastructure, and open-source data. The researcher connects signals across customer environments, develops defensible campaign and actor assessments, and translates findings into timely hunting guidance, durable detections, incident response actions, customer protections, and authoritative reporting. Success is demonstrated through fast, technically rigorous investigations; discovery of previously unknown or under-scoped activity; and clear operational impact across security operations, incident response, product, and customer-facing teams.
Responsibilities
Recognized as a technical authority, the Staff Threat Intelligence Researcher independently leads complex adversary investigations and helps shape how the organization identifies, validates, tracks, and responds to emerging threats across a large, multi-customer telemetry environment.
- Lead rapid-response research into emerging threats, newly disclosed vulnerabilities, active exploitation, malware campaigns, ransomware operations, and nation-state or cybercriminal activity that may affect customers.
- Proactively hunt across internal MDR and IR telemetry to identify active campaigns, previously unknown infrastructure, malware, intrusion patterns, and common adversary behaviors across customer environments.
- Correlate endpoint, network, cloud, identity, email, vulnerability, malware, infrastructure, case, and open-source data to develop and test campaign hypotheses.
- Scope potentially widespread activity by determining affected customers, observed behaviors, intrusion timelines, infrastructure overlap, and confidence in campaign or actor clustering.
- Produce time-sensitive intelligence assessments, threat advisories, hunting packages, campaign reports, and executive or customer briefings during high-impact security events.
- Develop and operationalize YARA, Sigma, behavioral analytics, search logic, indicators, and detection hypotheses in partnership with detection engineering, threat hunting, and security operations teams.
- Partner closely with Adversary Response and Incident Response teams during active investigations, providing adversary context, collection requirements, analytical judgments, and follow-on hunting recommendations.
- Establish and apply rigorous standards for campaign clustering, actor tracking, attribution, analytical confidence, evidence handling, and intelligence validation.
- Build repeatable research methods, tooling, and automation that reduce the time from initial signal to validated finding and customer protection.
- Publish high-quality internal and external research and represent the organization in customer briefings, intelligence-sharing communities, and industry forums.
Expert Positioning Goal
Serve as a recognized authority in adversary research and response by developing repeatable campaign-investigation tradecraft, mentoring other researchers, and producing original research that improves customer protection and industry understanding of active threats.
Example Key Results
- Identified and scoped an active campaign through cross-customer MDR telemetry, enabling rapid customer notification, targeted hunting, and new behavioral detections.
- Reduced time from emerging-threat signal to validated intelligence package by creating reusable queries, enrichment workflows, and investigation playbooks.
- Established a defensible campaign-clustering and analytical-confidence approach used consistently in adversary reporting and response decisions.
Complexity & Problem Solving
Solves highly complex and ambiguous problems involving incomplete telemetry, noisy or deceptive indicators, uncertain attribution, multi-stage intrusions, and activity distributed across customer environments. Forms and tests competing hypotheses, distinguishes shared tooling from coordinated campaigns, assesses confidence and impact, and makes time-sensitive recommendations while identifying evidence gaps and alternative explanations.
About You
- Extensive experience in cyber threat intelligence, adversary research, threat hunting, malware analysis, incident response, or a related discipline, with demonstrated technical leadership as a senior individual contributor.
- Deep knowledge of nation-state, cybercriminal, ransomware, initial-access, malware, and vulnerability-exploitation ecosystems.
- Demonstrated experience hunting across large-scale endpoint, network, cloud, identity, email, and security-operations telemetry using SIEM, EDR, data-lake, or similar analysis platforms.
- Strong ability to use SQL, Python, Kusto Query Language, SPL, or comparable languages to analyze large datasets, automate enrichment, and build reusable research workflows.
- Experience analyzing host and network telemetry such as process execution, command lines, authentication events, DNS, proxy, firewall, Zeek, Sysmon, auditd, and cloud audit logs.
- Experience translating intelligence into YARA, Sigma, behavioral detections, hunting strategies, incident response actions, defensive controls, or product improvements.
- Working knowledge of MITRE ATT&CK, the Diamond Model, intrusion analysis, structured analytic techniques, campaign clustering, attribution, and analytical confidence.
- Familiarity with malware-analysis and reverse-engineering tools such as Ghidra, IDA Pro, x64dbg, debuggers, sandboxes, and static or dynamic analysis utilities.
- Proven ability to author publication-quality threat research and communicate technical findings, uncertainty, customer impact, and recommended actions to technical, executive, and customer audiences.
- Sound judgment when handling sensitive intelligence, customer data, uncertain attribution, and high-impact or fast-moving security incidents.
On-Camera Policy
To support a fair, transparent, and engaging interview experience, candidates interviewing remotely are expected to be on camera during all video interviews. Being on camera fosters authentic connection, improves communication, and allows for full engagement from both candidates and interviewers. We understand that technical, bandwidth, or location-related challenges may occasionally prevent video use. If this applies, candidates are required to notify us in advance so we can explore appropriate accommodations.
BenefitsAll wolves receive compelling compensation and benefits packages, including:
- Equity for all employees
- Flexible time off and paid volunteer days
- 401(k) contribution and matching
- Training and career development programs
- Comprehensive private benefits plan including medical, mental health, dental, disability, life and AD&D, and value-added services
- Robust Employee Assistance Program (EAP) with mental health services
- Fertility support and paid parental leave
Base SalaryThe base salary range for this job family is 86,000 to 240,000 USD annually. This range reflects the base pay the company reasonably expects to offer for this position, aligned to the broader job family base pay structure. Actual base pay may vary based on skills, experience, and location, including job family level. In addition to base pay, Arctic Wolf offers variable incentive compensation, new hire equity grants, and a comprehensive benefits package.
