Threat Researcher Detection Engineer

Location: Schiller Park
Posted on: June 23, 2025

Job Description:

Sophos is a global leader and innovator of advanced security solutions for defeating cyberattacks. The company acquired Secureworks in February 2025, bringing together two pioneers that have redefined the cybersecurity industry with their innovative, native AI-optimized services, technologies and products. Sophos is now the largest pure-play Managed Detection and Response (MDR) provider, supporting more than 28,000 organizations. In addition to MDR and other services, Sophos’ complete portfolio includes industry-leading endpoint, network, email, and cloud security that interoperate and adapt to defend through the Sophos Central platform. Secureworks provides the innovative, market-leading Taegis XDR/MDR, identity threat detection and response (ITDR), next-gen SIEM capabilities, managed risk, and a comprehensive set of advisory services. Sophos sells all these solutions through reseller partners, Managed Service Providers (MSPs) and Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) worldwide, defending more than 600,000 organizations worldwide from phishing, ransomware, data theft, other every day and state-sponsored cybercrimes. The solutions are powered by historical and real-time threat intelligence from Sophos X-Ops and the newly added Counter Threat Unit (CTU). Sophos is headquartered in Oxford, U.K. Role Summary We are seeking a detail-oriented and technically skilled Detection Engineer to join our X-OPS team. In this role, you will be responsible for analyzing advanced security threats—ranging from malware to complex web attacks—and translating threat intelligence into high-fidelity detections across our platform. Your work will help ensure our analysts and clients receive highly accurate, actionable alerts with minimal noise. You will leverage data from over 40 third-party and internal sources, partner with our CTU Threat Intelligence team, and use a range of scripting and automation tools to strengthen detection capabilities. The ideal candidate is a hands-on security practitioner with a deep understanding of endpoint behavior, malware analysis, and detection development who thrives in fast-paced, technical environments. What You Will Do • Develop countermeasures to detect advanced threats based on research and intelligence from the CTU team. • Analyze endpoint behaviors and logs to design detections using multi-source telemetry. • Continuously refine and monitor detection rules to optimize the signal-to-noise ratio for alerts. • Research and implement alert handling for new device ingestions, ensuring high-value signal delivery. • Leverage internal tooling to distinguish native from standard integrations for detection accuracy. • Collaborate on the development of internal tools, automation, and detection infrastructure. • Act as a subject matter expert across departments including Product Management, Marketing, and Labs Research. What You Will Bring • Strong passion for cybersecurity research and the ability to quickly learn emerging technologies. • Hands-on experience in scripting languages (PowerShell, Bash, Python) and use of Python data science libraries (e.g., NumPy, Pandas, Matplotlib). • Knowledge of CI/CD pipelines, testing frameworks, and automation principles. • Proficiency in analyzing logs from firewalls, proxies, and security infrastructure to identify anomalies. • Experience in malware analysis, including static/dynamic techniques and reverse engineering (IA32/64, ARM binaries). • Forensic analysis of memory and disk images across various OS and file system types. • Familiarity with event logs, traffic pattern anomalies, and threat hunting methodologies. • Strong understanding of endpoint detection, Linux/Unix and Windows OS internals, vulnerability identification, and workflow automation. • Experience with event correlation and incident reconstruction using log data is a plus, • Network traffic analysis skills, including identification of anomalous or malicious traits is a plus. • Solid grasp of database querying, systems architecture, and process automation for operational improvements is a nice to have.

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