Cybersecurity testers at NSA play a vital role in the security of NSA's mission by conducting both security controls and adversarial testing against our state-of-the-art Information Technology (IT) systems executing NSA's SIGINT and Cybersecurity missions. NSA is advancing technology to deliver mission outcomes. As such, Cybersecurity testers have the opportunity to work across a broad set of technologies including commercial cloud fabrics, artificial intelligence, high performance computing, and advanced cryptographic systems. These personnel are involved in both developmental and operational testing so NSA systems can be protected from the most sophisticated nation state adversaries. Some examples of tasks include:

- Conducting security controls testing of NSA systems to ensure controls are properly implemented by system owner(s)
- Conducting testing against cloud fabrics, including various security configuration options of cloud services and a wide variety of different security configurations
- Assessing the effectiveness of security solutions against cybersecurity frameworks (e.g. MITRE Attack Framework)
- Operating within teams focused on implementing and evolving cybersecurity testing procedures and implementing automation to reduce testing time and improve consistent analysis
- Operating within a cybersecurity team for each of the life cycle steps of the Federal Government's Risk Management Framework (RMF), as maintained by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST 800-53)
- Implementing automation across the cybersecurity testing processes

Depending on their education, training, and experience, Cybersecurity testers are hired into positions as a Testing and Evaluation Specialist and placed into functional positions performing cybersecurity testing functions commensurate with their skills. Entry-level cybersecurity professionals will take on the front-line control testing of our systems while beginning to learn the intricacies of secure system design. The most experienced testing personnel will have opportunities to formulate unconstrained cybersecurity testing to emulate cybersecurity adversary and rogue system administrator threats.

Please attach a copy of your transcripts from all schools attended when applying for this position. Providing a copy of your transcripts is especially critical since the minimum qualifications for this position require a degree that demonstrates a concentration of Computer Science (CS) courses in foundational CS areas.

Conditions of employment

• All applicants and employees are subject to random drug testing in accordance with Executive Order 12564.

Qualifications

ENTRY/DEVELOPMENTAL
Entry is with a Bachelor's degree and no experience. An Associate's degree plus 2 years of relevant experience may be considered for individuals with in-depth experience that is clearly related to the position.

FULL PERFORMANCE Entry is with a Bachelor's degree plus 3 years of relevant experience or a Master's degree plus 1 year of relevant experience or a Doctoral degree and no experience. An Associate's degree plus 5 years of relevant experience may be considered for individuals with in-depth experience that is clearly related to the position.

How you will be evaluated

You will be evaluated for this job based on how well you meet the qualifications above.

Desired experience includes:

Cyber planning, cybersecurity operations, mission management, vulnerabilities, troubleshoot, mitigations, network defense, requirements management, cyber security technical knowledge, strategy and process development, project management, program management, technical writing, finished SIGINT report evaluation, partnership and customer relations (i.e. DoD, USCYBERCOM, DISA, JTFHQ DoDIN, DIB partners), joint doctrine and military planning certifications and education, coordination, communication, strong interpersonal skills, problem identification and resolution.

Additional expectations may include your ability to:

- Represent the Agency in interactions with outside customers, DoD, Congressional representatives, foreign partners, or the general public.
- Represent the Agency or its subordinate organizations to customers, suppliers, and stakeholders.
- Review Information Needs (INs) to understand operational, tactical or strategic mission requirements.
- Submit a request for information (RFI) related to target and/or mission requirements.
- Identify intelligence gaps related to target and/or mission requirements.
- Develop a strategic course of action based on target vulnerabilities, anomalous network activity, and/or mission capabilities.
- Develop an operational or tactical course of action based on target vulnerabilities, anomalous network activity, and/or mission capabilities.
- Evaluate methods, tools, and techniques that can be used to secure information/communication systems and the facilities that house them.
- Develop mitigation strategies and countermeasures to address vulnerabilities of networks, products, and services.
- Document analytic findings relevant to computer network defense.
- Maintain situational awareness of current computer network defense conditions using information from external data sources (for example, computer network defense vendor sites, CERTS, SANS, Security Focus).
- Recommend vulnerability mitigation strategies based on evaluation results.
- Maintain operational, technical, and authoritative situational awareness during operations.
- Create work teams with appropriate employees to accomplish work goals.

Skills:
We're looking for someone with knowledge, skills, and experience in one or more of the following:
- Cloud Security Knowledge for commercial cloud environments such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Oracle or Google cloud environments
- Knowledge of or experience with penetration testing or ethical hacking methodologies
- Knowledge of network attacks based on MITRE Attack Framework
- Familiarity with exploitation techniques and frameworks (network firewalls, intrusion detection systems, networks)
- Familiarity with various exploitation frameworks (e.g. Metasploit)
- Understanding of shell scripting for the development of network attack tools and techniques (e.g. Python, Perl, or Ruby)
- Knowledge of vulnerability identification, mitigations, and countermeasures
-Understanding of network protocols
- Knowledge of Windows / Linux network programming
- Knowledge of network architecture, network and IT infrastructure devices, physical and virtual
- Understanding of tools (nmap, nessus, dsniff, libnet, netcat, network sniffers) and techniques (e.g. fuzzing)
- Understanding of threat modeling and development of test scenarios
- Critical thinking and ability to break large complex problems into manageable parts

Experience and knowledge of computer security tools, vulnerability analysis, systems architecture, systems engineering, test and evaluation tradecraft, and software engineering is helpful. Working knowledge of automation tools and Linux is helpful.

The ideal candidate is someone with a desire for experiential learning and strong problem-solving, analytic and interpersonal skills who is:
- willing to take the initiative
- innovative
- able to work effectively across several different functional areas in a collaborative environment
- able to communicate effectively (both orally and written)
- well-organized and able to handle multiple assignments.

Next steps