Consulting Associate/Recovery Services (Forensic Services practice)

Charles River Associates; United States; Hybrid; USD 100,000 - 127,000; Full time

Job summary

Charles River Associates is seeking a Consulting Associate for its Forensic Services practice in the United States. The role involves hands-on incident response, digital forensics, and recovery in hybrid Microsoft environments, requiring strong technical and communication skills.

You will lead forensic collection/analysis, contain threats, rebuild identity infrastructure, and interface with clients under time pressure.

Qualifications

• 3–5 years of hands-on experience in incident response, digital forensics, or a closely related security engineering role.
• Demonstrated experience responding to ransomware, BEC, or intrusion matters in enterprise environments.
• Deep working knowledge of Active Directory and Entra ID, including attack paths and hardening controls.
• Proficiency with at least one enterprise EDR platform and its response tooling.
• Strong scripting ability in PowerShell; Python a plus.
• Excellent written communication; able to produce report-quality prose without heavy editing.
• Ability to operate independently under incident conditions and manage competing priorities across concurrent matters.

Responsibilities

• Execute digital forensic collection and analysis across Windows, Linux, virtualization, and cloud environments.
• Perform endpoint and identity containment using EDR platforms with real-time response and telemetry analysis.
• Lead technical recovery workstreams in ransomware matters including domain controller rebuilds and credential resets.
• Investigate business email compromise and wire fraud matters with mail flow reconstruction and tenant log analysis.
• Analyze and remediate hybrid identity environments: Active Directory, Entra ID, Entra Connect, Conditional Access.
• Develop and maintain PowerShell, Graph SDK, and Python tooling for collection, containment, and recovery automation.
• Produce clear, defensible written work products: forensic reports, timelines, containment playbooks, client communications.
• Support engagement scoping with technical level-of-effort estimates grounded in evidence.

Skills

Incident response

Digital forensics

PowerShell

Python

Written communication

Independent work

Tools

CrowdStrike Falcon

Job description

Consulting Associate/Recovery Services (Forensic Services practice)

Boston, MA, United States; Chicago, IL, United States; Dallas, Texas, United States; Houston, Texas, United States; New York, NY, United States; Oakland, CA, United States; Washington, DC, United States

About Charles River Associates

Charles River Associates is a leading global consulting firm that provides economic, financial, and business management expertise to major law firms, corporations and governments around the world. CRA advises clients on economic and financial matters pertaining to litigation and regulatory proceedings, and guides corporations through critical business strategy and performance-related issues. Since 1965, clients have engaged CRA for its combination of industry experience and rigorous, fact-based analysis that provide clients with clear, implementable solutions to complex business concerns.

Learn more about our work by reviewing our Services and Industries on our website .

Position Overview

CRA’s Forensic Services practice supports companies’ commitment to integrity by assisting them and their counsel in independently responding to allegations of fraud, waste, abuse, misconduct, and non-compliance. We are noted for deploying cross-trained teams of forensic professionals to assist our clients in gaining deeper insights and greater value more quickly. We provide accounting and forensic services as well as cybercrime investigation services.

The Consulting Associate is a hands-on technical responder and forensic analyst who executes the core workstreams of incident response and recovery engagements. You will lead forensic collection and analysis, drive containment and eradication actions in hybrid Microsoft environments, and rebuild enterprise identity and infrastructure under time pressure. This role is for a practitioner who is equally comfortable pulling disk images from a compromised ESXi host at 2 AM and walking a general counsel through the findings the next morning.

Key Responsibilities

• Execute digital forensic collection and analysis across Windows, Linux, virtualized (VMware, Hyper-V), and cloud (Azure, M365, Google Workspace) environments
• Perform endpoint and identity containment using EDR platforms (CrowdStrike Falcon or equivalent), including real-time response, custom detection logic, and telemetry analysis
• Lead technical recovery workstreams in ransomware matters: domain controller rebuild and validation, tiered credential resets, hypervisor and backup restoration, and host checkout against defined gate criteria
• Investigate business email compromise and wire fraud matters, including mail flow reconstruction, tenant log analysis, OAuth and enterprise application audits, and attacker infrastructure attribution
• Analyze and remediate hybrid identity environments: Active Directory, Entra ID, Entra Connect, Conditional Access, and privileged access configurations
• Develop and maintain PowerShell, Graph SDK, and Python tooling for collection, containment, and recovery automation
• Produce clear, defensible written work product: forensic reports, investigation timelines, containment playbooks, and client status communications
• Support engagement scoping by contributing technical level-of-effort estimates grounded in environment evidence
• Interface directly with client IT teams, counsel, and carrier representatives during active matters

Desired Qualifications

• 3-5 years of hands-on experience in incident response, digital forensics, or a closely related security engineering role
• Demonstrated experience responding to ransomware, BEC, or intrusion matters in enterprise environments
• Deep working knowledge of Active Directory and Entra ID, including attack paths (Kerberos abuse, shadow credentials, ADCS misconfigurations) and hardening controls
• Proficiency with at least one enterprise EDR platform and its response tooling
• Strong scripting ability in PowerShell; Python a plus
• Excellent written communication; able to produce report-quality prose without heavy editing
• Ability to operate independently under incident conditions and manage competing priorities across concurrent matters

Preferred Qualifications

• Industry certifications such as GCFA, GCIH, GNFA, GCFE, EnCE, CISSP, or equivalent
• Experience with virtualization forensics (VMware vSAN, iSCSI, datastore-level acquisition) and backup platform recovery
• Familiarity with Google Workspace forensics and administrative tooling
• Experience working under legal privilege with outside counsel and cyber insurance carriers
• Exposure to OT/ICS environments or regulated industries (healthcare, financial services)
• Incident response work involves surge periods, including nights and weekends during active engagements.

Career Growth and Benefits

• CRA’s robust skills development programs , including a commitment to offering 100 hours of training annually through formal and informal programs, encourage you to thrive as an individual and team member. Beginning with research and analysis skill building, training continues with technical training, presentation skills, internal seminars, and career mentoring and performance coaching from an assigned senior colleague. Additional leadership and collaboration opportunities exist through internal firm development activities.
• We offer a comprehensive total rewards program including a superior benefits package, wellness programming to support physical, mental, emotional and financial well-being, and in-house immigration support for foreign nationals and international business travelers.

Work Location Flexibility

CRA creates a work environment that enables our colleagues to benefit from being together in the office to best deliver on our promise of career growth, mentorship and inclusivity. At the same time, we recognize that individuals realize a range of benefits when working from home periodically. We currently expect that individuals spend at least 3 to 4 days a week working in the office (which may include traveling to another CRA office or to client meetings), with specific days determined in coordination with your practice or team.

Responsible AI Use in Recruiting

We believe that recruiting is fundamentally a human process, and we are committed to a hiring process that is consistent, transparent, and people-focused. While AI and other technology-enabled tools help our team operate more efficiently, we strive to provide every candidate with a personalized, thoughtful, and high-touch experience. As CRA invests significant human effort to find qualified members for our teams, we expect candidates to invest corresponding human effort to learn about CRA, prepare thoughtful application materials, and engage with our interviewers. Read more about appropriate hiring manager, recruiting team, and candidate AI at CRA on our website .

Our Commitment to Equal Employment Opportunity

Charles River Associates is an equal opportunity employer (EOE). All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, status as a protected veteran, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.

Salary and other compensation

A good-faith estimate of the annual base salary range for this position is $100,000 - $126,500. Stating pay within this range may vary based on factors such as education level, experience, skills, geographic location, market conditions, and other qualifications of the successful candidate. This position may be eligible for additional bonus incentive compensation.

CRA offers a comprehensive benefits package, subject to eligibility requirements, which may include: medical, dental, and vision insurance; 401(k) retirement plan with employer match; life and disability insurance; paid time off (vacation, sick leave, holidays); paid parental leave; wellness programs and employee assistance resources; and commuter benefits.

Voluntary Self-Identification

For government reporting purposes, we ask candidates to respond to the below self-identification survey.Completion of the form is entirely voluntary. Whatever your decision, it will not be considered in the hiringprocess or thereafter. Any information that you do provide will be recorded and maintained in aconfidential file.

As set forth in Charles River Associates’s Equal Employment Opportunity policy,we do not discriminate on the basis of any protected group status under any applicable law.

If you believe you belong to any of the categories of protected veterans listed below, please indicate by making the appropriate selection.As a government contractor subject to the Vietnam Era Veterans Readjustment Assistance Act (VEVRAA), we request this information in order to measurethe effectiveness of the outreach and positive recruitment efforts we undertake pursuant to VEVRAA. Classification of protected categoriesis as follows:

A "disabled veteran" is one of the following: a veteran of the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service who is entitled to compensation (or who but for the receipt of military retired pay would be entitled to compensation) under laws administered by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs; or a person who was discharged or released from active duty because of a service-connected disability.

A "recently separated veteran" means any veteran during the three-year period beginning on the date of such veteran's discharge or release from active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval, or air service.

An "active duty wartime or campaign badge veteran" means a veteran who served on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service during a war, or in a campaign or expedition for which a campaign badge has been authorized under the laws administered by the Department of Defense.

An "Armed forces service medal veteran" means a veteran who, while serving on active duty in the U.S. military, ground, naval or air service, participated in a United States military operation for which an Armed Forces service medal was awarded pursuant to Executive Order 12985.