Principal Threat Intelligence Researcher

Summary

Join Palo Alto Networks® as a Principal Threat Intelligence Researcher and contribute to the Unit 42 Intelligence Response Unit, playing a critical role in protecting customers. You will deliver fused intelligence insights for internal and external stakeholders, tailoring content for various audiences. Responsibilities include creating anticipatory threat knowledge, developing engaging content, and collaborating across teams. Leverage AI for analytic workflows and improve analytic processes. The role requires strong cybersecurity knowledge, experience with threat intelligence frameworks, and excellent communication skills. Compensation is competitive and includes benefits.

Requirements

• Strong knowledge of cyber security threat actors, particularly their tactics, techniques, procedures, tooling, and noteworthy attacks
• Ability to contextualize cyber events, identify how the events fit into a current or historical pattern, and provide perspective relevant to a given stakeholder
• History of triaging and modeling open source data, telemetry, and other intelligence sources to quickly respond to requests for information. Preference for experience with Synapse or other hypergraphs
• Demonstrated ability to coordinate with cross-organizational threat analysts, facilitating collaboration, and aligning efforts to achieve common goals
• Experience with prompt engineering and leveraging Google’s AI capabilities to support development of intelligence products
• Strong writing and presentation skills with the ability to communicate threat intelligence effectively to diverse audiences, including C-suite level customers
• Experience operating under short fuse deadlines, managing concurrent tasks, and thriving in complex and sometimes ambiguous situations
• Comfortable adapting to change as part of a growing team

Responsibilities

• Internal Request for Information (RFI) Support: Deliver fused intelligence insights for priority internal stakeholders. Tailor content, empowering informed discussions with current and prospective customers, media, industry groups, and government organizations. Coordinate and deconflict responses with other Palo Alto Networks teams to ensure consistent messaging and inclusion of unique insights from across the company. Some requests will require rapid turn around time, which may include operating outside of normal business hours
• Client-facing RFI Support: Provide tailored research and analysis for client-based RFIs to drive business and security outcomes. Leverage the full weight of Palo Alto Network's unique data holdings, on-going research, cross-company capabilities, and externally sourced information. Assist leadership in creating a scalable solution to service multiple industries and similar stakeholder types. Recommend and help implement improvements to service support quality and speed to enhance the effectiveness and differentiation of our threat intelligence responses
• Anticipatory Threat Knowledge Creation: Develop structured intelligence insights tracking adversary trends, motivations, organizational priorities, and historical region and industry targeting patterns. This information will act as a backdrop to support intelligence production response for unfolding cyber events, exploitation trends, and threat actor campaigns
• External Engagements: Develop engaging and informative content, including customer briefings, threat reports, and updates on major cyber events. Share insights and expertise internally, with customers, and at security conferences
• Cross-Organizational Collaboration: Collaborate with threat analysts, consultants, and engineers from various teams and departments within the organization. Foster strong relationships and support joint efforts to address complex threats that span multiple areas of expertise
• Leverage AI for Analytic Workflows: Integrate Generative AI, NotebookLM, and other artificial intelligence and machine learning solutions across all phases of the intelligence lifecycle to improve analytic workflows. Use and develop new AI solutions to reduce research toil, query existing intelligence holdings, and accelerate report and presentation creation

Preferred Qualifications

Deep experience with cyber threat intelligence frameworks and analytical techniques preferred

Benefits

• The compensation offered for this position will depend on qualifications, experience, and work location. For candidates who receive an offer at the posted level, the starting base salary (for non-sales roles) or base salary + commission target (for sales/commissioned roles) is expected to be between $157,000 - $255,000/YR
• The offered compensation may also include restricted stock units and a bonus