DFIR Lead

Salt; Dubai; On-site; AED 260,000 - 420,000; Full time

Job summary

Salt is seeking a seasoned DFIR Lead to manage and mentor the digital forensics and incident response team. You will lead incident response across diverse environments, perform in-depth forensic investigations, and develop robust response plans and playbooks for complex security incidents.

The role requires extensive experience in security operations, malware analysis, reverse engineering, and log analysis, with hands-on scripting in Python/PowerShell and familiarity with red team tactics.

Qualifications

• Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Electrical Engineering, or closely related field.
• 10+ years information security experience including security operations, intrusion detection, incident analysis, log analysis, malware analysis, reverse engineering or threat detection.
• 2–3 years as Senior or Lead Analyst guiding and mentoring others.

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor the DFIR team and daily management tasks.
• Coordinate incident response in unknown environments, including triage, containment, eradication, and remediation.
• Conduct in-depth forensic investigations to determine root causes of incidents.

Skills

Security operations

Incident handling

Forensics analysis

Threat hunting

SANS methodology

Python scripting

PowerShell scripting

TCP/IP knowledge

Red Team basics

Log analysis

Education

Bachelors in CS/IS/EE

Tools

Yara rules

Digital Forensics tools

Snort/Sigma rules

Job description

Responsibilities

• Lead and mentor the DFIR team and act on daily management tasks.
• Lead and coordinate incident response activities in unknown environments, including triage, containment, eradication, and remediation.
• Conduct in-depth forensic investigations to determine the root cause of security incidents and breaches.
• Develop and maintain standard incident response plans, best practices, policies, and procedures.
• Develop custom incident response plans tied to specific environments and customer situations.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including IT, legal, and management, to ensure a coordinated response to security incidents.
• Examinate and analyze logs/data from a broad variety of security technologies, such as but not limited to Antiviruses, IDS/IPS, Firewalls,
• Switches, VPNs and other security data and log sources.
• Perform forensic analysis of different artifacts including RAM, packet captures, logs, and disk images.
• Reverse engineer malicious software and develop signatures and indicators of compromise.
• Actively develop incident response tools, scripts, and various detection content.
• Research Red Team techniques, develop custom detection queries, rules, watchlists and other content, and conduct threat hunts.
• Articulate and execute common Incident Response methods (e.g., SANS).
• Respond to inbound requests via phone and other electronic means for technical assistance with managed services.
• Work on-site as required with clients during Live Security Incidents (could be out of country).
• Maintain a high degree of awareness of the current threat landscape.
• Champion excellence and support others in delivering it through active knowledge sharing with team members, writing technical articles for internal knowledge bases, blog posts and reports as required or requested.
• Create and present customer reports to ensure quality, accuracy, and value to the client.
• Provide technical expertise and guidance to junior incident response and forensic investigation team members.
• Stay current with industry trends, emerging threats, and best practices in incident response and digital forensics.
• Perform other essential duties as assigned.

Qualifications & Skills

• A Degree in Computer Science, Information Systems, Electrical Engineering, or a closely related degree.
• 10+ years of experience in information security, in areas such as security operations, intrusion detection, incident analysis, incident handling, log analysis, malware analysis, reverse engineering or threat detection.
• At least 2-3 years of experience as a Senior or Lead Analyst, or equivalent experience guiding, mentoring, and teaching other Analysts/Security Professionals how to handle Security Incidents.
• Must have any of the following certifications: CISSP, GCIA, GCIH, GCFA, GCFE, GREM, OSCP certification
• Strong background or equivalent experience in four of the following: Security Threat and Event Analysis, Network Security Operations or Engineering, Reverse Engineering, Malware Analysis, Windows/Linux/OSX Forensics, Penetration Testing, Active Directory and Azure Administration.
• A sound knowledge of IT security best practices, common attack types and detection/prevention methods.
• Demonstrable experience in accountability for and applying the methods of Incident Response, including adherence to process and direct engagement with stakeholders.
• Demonstrable experience in analyzing and interpreting system, security, and application logs.
• Broad knowledge of the type of events that Firewalls, IDS/IPS and other security related devices produce.
• Demonstrable experience in the use of Digital Forensics tools, techniques and concepts including creating and using custom tools and scripts.
• Static reverse engineering and analysis of malware written in different languages (X86/X64/C/C#, Go, etc.), signatures and Yara/Snort/Sigma rules development.
• Strong knowledge of Red Team tactics and ability to find adversary traces on Enterprise scale.
• Rapid development in scripting languages: Python/PowerShell /Bash.
• Deep TCP/IP knowledge, networking, and security product experience.
• Knowledge of attack activities, such as scans, man in the middle, sniffing, DoS, DDoS, etc. and possible abnormal activities, such as worms, Trojans, viruses, etc.
• Demonstrate experience in handling Incident Response engagements (APTs and Ransomware) using the SANS Incident Response method (or similar).