Cybersecurity analyst

Scope:
This engagement requires a contract for a position for 1 year at 40 hours per week. The Cybersecurity Analyst will play an important role to continuously monitor, triage alerts and tickets, investigate suspicious activity or poor configurations, and orchestrate responses to protect the laboratory's systems and data. Typical tasks may include:

• Resetting user passwords for cause (e.g., when they have been identified as being suspected compromised or 'known compromised')
• Working with service owners to reset service account passwords for various reasons
• Ensuring authorizers are designated for in-scope accounts
• Analyzing usage patterns for accounts (e.g., service, administrative) to identify inactive accounts or inappropriate account use
• Reviewing approval requests for various new access or accounts
• Triaging unusual access requests (e.g., access from 3 rd party VPN providers, impossible travel) or phishing reports
• Evaluate endpoint and detection response (EDR) installation and coverage.
• Identify systems without EDR and provide to IT teams for remediation.
• Monitoring external attack surface for unapproved systems, undocumented systems, and newly disclosed vulnerabilities
• Reviewing systems with existing public access to ensure requirements for these systems are followed (e.g., event logging, multifactor authentication)
• Attend online/Teams meetings with team and others as appropriate
• Work with team to provide status on current task, suggest improvements, discuss implementation, etc.

You will be expected to use a variety of tools to perform the above tasks, including ServiceNow, CrowdStrike, and Splunk



Objectives:
The ideal candidate will support the projects and tasks associated with the Cybersecurity Program.



Technical Direction of Work:
Report to the Deputy Chief Information Security Officer within the Business & Information Services division; including daily guidance and collaboration with others in the Cyber Security Program Office (CSPO).



Task and Time Reporting:
The project managers measure work performed by the contractor on a task basis. The tasks typically represent 8 to 80 hours of effort with performance being measured at the completion of each of the assigned tasks. Hours will be recorded on a weekly time sheet; progress against planned tasks will be reported weekly or bi-weekly, at the discretion of the Deputy CISO.


Typically, the work is performed remotely. For the candidate within driving distance of the Lab, there may be rare times to be onsite for in-person meetings, assessments, or presentations. Most of the Business Information Services (BIS) Division works remotely and are rarely onsite. If the candidate is out of state, too far away from the Lab, onsite meetings are not feasible to attend and not required.



Expectation/Deliverables:


A candidate is expected to:

• Analyze data and perform initial planning to address identified issues.
• Assist with the creation of playbooks to address identified issues.
• Seek to understand the intention of detections and corresponding playbooks.
• Execute various playbooks dealing with identified issues with minimal assistance (e.g., identification of compromised passwords, inappropriate use of administrative accounts, systems not providing event logs, systems without a functional EDR installed).

An improved candidate would also:

• Adapt on-the-fly when an existing playbook is insufficient.
• Provide basic feedback on playbooks and detections.
• Produce clear reports (MTTD/MTTR, FP rate, backlog) for technical and executive audiences; maintain thorough case notes.
• Recommend additional new use cases for detections based on an analysis of threats and data.
• Identify telemetry quality and visibility issues (SIEM parsing/normalization, EDR/XDR sensor health, asset/identity tagging).

An excellent candidate would also:

• Conduct proactive threat hunts; convert findings into new detections and control recommendations.
• Create advanced use cases for detections based on an analysis of threats and data, including sample criteria to identify the behavior and mapping detections to MITRE Telecommunication&CK

• Drive continuous improvements to existing processes or tooling.
• Perform quality reviews and improve handoffs/runbooks.
• Coach, guide, teach others on the team.
• Lead investigations end-to-end (triage to containment), delivering timelines, root cause, scope, IOCs, and impacted assets.
• Execute/coordinate containment and remediation (host isolation, credential resets, blocks) with proper approvals and verification.
  

Minimum Qualifications:

• 1 3 years in a SOC, cybersecurity 'blue team', or closely related role.
• Strong grasp of TCP/IP, OSI model, and common protocols ( DNS, SMTP). Windows/Linux/macOS fundamentals; Active Directory/Azure AD concepts; basic cloud logging.
• Experience with at least one SIEM and one EDR/XDR platform.
• Experience with ticketing/case management.
• Ability to craft queries using common languages; comfort with regex, JSON and APIs; basic scripting in Python/PowerShell/Bash.
• Excellent analytical, problem-solving, and communication skills both with stakeholders, peers, and internal customers; able to operate under pressure in a shift or on-call environment.

Preferred Additional Qualifications

• 3 5 years relevant experience including investigations, data analysis, and detection tuning.
• Comfort using Splunk Processing Language (SPL), CrowdStrike EDR, and ServiceNow.
• Experience with SOAR tools and automation development.
• Experience using identity security/management tools (e.g., Entra ID, Active Directory, Shibboleth, CrowdStrike Identity Protection).
• Cloud security experience (e.g., CloudTrail/GuardDuty, Azure Defender/M365, GCP Security Command Center).
• Basic forensics skills and network analysis fundamentals (host triage, timelines, artifact analysis, packet/PCAP review).
• Understanding of the Cybersecurity Framework (CSF) and NIST 800-53 controls.

Relevant certifications (nice to have): Security+, CySA+, SSCP; Microsoft SC-200/AZ-500; Splunk Core/Enterprise Security; GIAC (GCIH, GCIA, GCFA, GCTI); cloud provider security certs.



Experience

• Experience in system and network administration.
• Staying up to date with the latest cybersecurity threats, vulnerabilities, and best practices.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• Meticulous attention to detail to ensure thorough assessments and accurate reporting.

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to effectively convey findings and recommendations to technical and non-technical stakeholders.
• Ability to work collaboratively with other cybersecurity professionals, IT staff, and external vendors.
• Considerable knowledge/experience of assessing security controls.
• Experience and skill in conducting audits or reviews of technical systems.
• Experience working in a government environment.
• Experience working in a distributed IT environment.
• Ability to qualify for HSPD-12 card for use in two-factor authentication.
• Able to work both independently and as a contributing member of a small technical team
• Able to disseminate knowledge to current staff.

Government-Furnished Property:

• Argonne will supply a government-furnished laptop, PIV Card, and PIV Card reader.

Computer Protection Program:
The contractor shall adhere to all policies and procedures of the ANL Computer Protection Program, must not bypass any procedures established to protect data, applications, hardware, or communications at ANL, must maintain a work environment that will satisfy audit, privacy, and protection requirements, and must report any findings of inadequacies to the technical contact and the BIS Computer Protection Program Representative.



Security Requirements:

• The Cyber Security Program Office follows the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cyber Security Framework. All subcontracts, where applicable, will work within the same requirements as though the subcontractor was part of the Laboratory's cyber program.
• Argonne's Cyber Security Program requires that all persons who access sensitive data or applications must learn and adhere to protection requirements of the data or application, must not bypass procedures established to protect data and applications, and must immediately report any findings of inadequacies in protection procedures to the Cyber Security Program Office ( [email protected] ).
• In cases where staffing is required, vetting of identity (NIST 800-63 Identity Assurance Level 3) and strong authentication (NIST 800-63 Authentication Assurance Level 3) will be required. Argonne uses the HSPD-12 smart card for staff relationships that last longer than 6 months.
• Argonne may provide relevant information requested from the vendor or remote access as required to gather information. U.S. citizenship will be required for any access to systems or data.
• The manager of the contract and the Cyber Security Program Office must approve authorization for remote work.

The following expectations are part of working remote:

• Working remotely outside of scheduled times requires supervisor approval prior to performing that remote work.
• While working remotely, just like when onsite, all scheduled meetings must be attended (using approved remote communication tools).
• The candidate must be available for consultation during all scheduled work time, reachable by email, phone, chat, or other approved means.
• Performance will be monitored to determine productivity for remote work at least matches that when onsite. If performance and deliverables decline, remote work may be suspended.
• Should a situation arise that requires the candidate to be onsite while scheduled to work remotely, accommodation will be made to reschedule the remote work, if desired.
• The remote work privilege may be revoked at any time at the discretion of Argonne.
• A flexible work schedule may also be possible if the schedule is agreed to by the candidate and approved by the supervisor and sponsor.
• Should the laboratory close operations due to weather or other circumstances, remote work is preferred.
• Lastly, the candidate must track their remote work schedule into the CSPO absence calendar and be approved by CSPO supervisor.

Place of Performance :
Work will be performed remotely (within the confines of the United States of America), and team communication will be done through Microsoft tools such as Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Outlook.



Period of Performance
Work would begin in October 2025, for 40 hours per week for 1 year.