Security Researcher

Security represents the most critical priorities for our customers in a world awash in digital threats, regulatory scrutiny, and estate complexity. Microsoft Security aspires to make the world a safer place for all. We want to reshape security and empower every user, customer, and developer with a security cloud that protects them with end to end, simplified solutions. The Microsoft Security organization accelerates Microsoft’s mission and bold ambitions to ensure that our company and industry is securing digital technology platforms, devices, and clouds in our customers’ heterogeneous environments, as well as ensuring the security of our own internal estate. Our culture is centered on embracing a growth mindset, a theme of inspiring excellence, and encouraging teams and leaders to bring their best each day. In doing so, we create life-changing innovations that impact billions of lives around the world.

Email, chat, and the web are integral parts of our everyday lives. They are essential for communication and productivity but are also the primary ways cybercriminals exploit victims. Attackers abuse these communication methods to deliver unsolicited spam, steal identities through phishing, inflict financial harm, and more. Do you want to join a team dedicated to protecting hundreds of millions of people from these threats? At Microsoft Security, our mission is to make the world a safer place for all. The Messaging and Web Security Research team is a global, multidisciplinary organization of engineers, data scientists, security researchers, and program managers. With an unparalleled view of the threat landscape, we develop deep expertise in attacker techniques and use that knowledge along with the latest technology to stop it. We protect customers using Outlook.com, Microsoft Defender for O365, Microsoft Edge, and much more. We are seeking a Security Researcher with the right blend of creativity, tenacity, and data analysis skills to help us protect the hundreds of millions of customers that rely on our Outlook.com (consumer) email service every day.

In this role you will proactively research, investigate, and mitigate the latest spam and phishing campaigns; conduct deep research and experimentation on new durable protection strategies; and collaborate with a diverse team of data scientists, researchers, engineers, and product managers to protect a global customer base. We are redefining email and web security using the latest technology, unparalleled data and intelligence systems, and a collaborative and inclusive team culture. Join us and make a difference in our mission to empower everyone to communicate with confidence and trust!

Microsoft’s mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. As employees we come together with a growth mindset, innovate to empower others, and collaborate to realize our shared goals. Each day we build on our values of respect, integrity, and accountability to create a culture of inclusion where everyone can thrive at work and beyond.

Responsibilities

As a Security Researcher focused on protecting Outlook.com (consumer) email customers, you will be responsible for:

• Responding to escalations to resolve detection effectiveness issues (misclassified spam/phish and false positives),
• Conducting deep analysis and research on attacker campaigns and techniques to support durable detection investments and improve customer experience,
• Building alerting, reporting, and automated detection solutions,
• Authoring rules and creating new hunting playbooks to detect and thwart evolving spam campaigns and other email-based attacks,
• Applying new data sources and technologies to improve customer protection,
• Conducting ad hoc studies and analysis to support day-to-day operations and guide protection strategy, and
• Engaging and collaborating with diverse partner teams to drive great customer experiences and ensure holistic protection across the Microsoft Security stack.
• Availability and willingness to cover a periodic on-call rotation for the team.
  
  

Qualifications

Required Qualifications:

• Bachelor's Degree (or currently pursuing) in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science or related field
• OR 1+ year(s) experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, modeling, cyber security, and/or anomaly detection
  
  

Preferred Qualifications

• 2+ years experience in software development lifecycle, large-scale computing, modeling, cybersecurity, and/or anomaly detection
• OR Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, Mathematics, Computer Science or related field
• 1+ years of experience investigating and responding to security incidents originating from the web or email (comparable experience in a similar domain will be considered)
• 1+ years of experience querying and analyzing large datasets, including experience building hunting or detection playbooks, monitoring dashboards, and/or automated alerting and investigation workflows. (e.g. SQL, Python/Jupyter, KQL/Azure Data Explorer, PowerBI, etc.)
• Experience creating and tuning detection rules using Regex, YARA or other pattern matching tools
• Insatiable curiosity to learn about attacker patterns and behaviors, with a drive to build innovative detections and protections.
• Understand the cyber kill chain, especially attack scenarios originating from email or web sites.
• Understand email headers, email/web security protocols, and related analysis tools.
• Experience responding to customer escalations and reporting investigative findings.
• Experience working through ambiguity to drive innovations in detections, monitoring, and internal team processes.
• Solid understanding of attacker tradecraft associated with email and web-based threats.
• Broad, general, familiarity with the email threat landscape affecting our customers.
• Strong ability to use data to “tell a story” and influence decision-making.
• Experience creating, using, or contributing to the development and validation of machine learning models.
• Ability to meet Microsoft, customer and/or government security screening requirements are required for this role. These requirements include, but are not limited to the following specialized security screenings: Microsoft Cloud Background Check:
• This position will be required to pass the Microsoft background and Microsoft Cloud background check upon hire/transfer and every two years thereafter.
  
  

Security Research IC2 - The typical base pay range for this role across the U.S. is USD $81,900 - $160,200 per year. There is a different range applicable to specific work locations, within the San Francisco Bay area and New York City metropolitan area, and the base pay range for this role in those locations is USD $105,600 - $174,600 per year.

Certain roles may be eligible for benefits and other compensation. Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/us/en/us-corporate-pay

Microsoft will accept applications for the role until October 3, 2024

Benefits/perks listed below may vary depending on the nature of your employment with Microsoft and the country where you work.

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran status, race, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable laws, regulations and ordinances. We also consider qualified applicants regardless of criminal histories, consistent with legal requirements. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application or the recruiting process, please send a request via the Accommodation request form

#MSFTSecurity #MSECAIR #CyberSecurity #SecurityResearch

Microsoft is an equal opportunity employer. Consistent with applicable law, all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, ancestry, citizenship, color, family or medical care leave, gender identity or expression, genetic information, immigration status, marital status, medical condition, national origin, physical or mental disability, political affiliation, protected veteran or military status, race, ethnicity, religion, sex (including pregnancy), sexual orientation, or any other characteristic protected by applicable local laws, regulations and ordinances. If you need assistance and/or a reasonable accommodation due to a disability during the application process, read more about requesting accommodations.