IT Cybersecurity Specialist (INFOSEC) - Insider Risk Data Analyst Job in Washington, DC

Vacancy No. OHS-12793314-25-PS Department Homeland Security Staff
Salary $101,401.00 to $131,826.00 Grade 12 to 12
Perm/Temp Permanent FT/PT Full-time
Open Date 9/8/2025 Close Date 9/12/2025
Job Link Apply Online Who may apply Public
Locations:
Washington, DC


Summary

This position is in the National Security Division (NSD) in the Office of Homeland Security (OHS), United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). As an Insider Risk Data Analyst, the incumbent will leverage User Activity Monitoring (UAM) tools and other data analytics to identify and analyze potential insider risks to the Department.

This job is open to

Clarification from the agency

Applications will be accepted from any U.S. citizen. Direct Hire Authority will be used to fill this position. Veterans Preference and traditional rating and ranking of applicants does not apply to this vacancy.

Duties

  • Assists the Insider Risk Program Manager by evaluating existing capabilities of User Activity Monitoring tools.
  • Prioritizes the review and response on User Activity Monitoring alerts marked as critical or high severity.
  • Capturing relevant user activity data to identify potential insider risks.
  • Triages critical and high severity alerts generated by monitoring tools for the protection against insider risks.
  • Contributes to the development and improvement of insider risk training, policy, and procedures that are consistent with law, policy, and regulation.
  • Responsible for data collection and applying critical thinking to draft case reports, referral letters, and annual reports in support of the Insider Risk Program.
  • Briefs National Security Division leadership on highly technical and/or complex data for review and acceptance.

Requirements

Conditions of Employment

  • You must be a US Citizen or US National.
  • Males born after 12/31/1959 must be Selective Service registered or exempt.
  • Subject to satisfactory adjudication of background investigation and/or fingerprint check.
  • If selected, you may be required to serve a probationary or trial period as applicable to appointment type.
  • Direct Deposit: Per Public Law 104-134 all Federal employees are required to have federal payments made by direct deposit to their financial institution.
  • Successfully pass the E-Verify employment verification check. To learn more about E-Verify, including your rights and responsibilities, visit E-Verify at https://www.e-verify.gov/.
  • You will be required to sign a Mobility Agreement as mobility is a factor in this occupation. You may be reassigned to a new location during your career based on the needs of the service.
  • Selected applicant must undergo and successfully obtain and maintain a background investigation for a Top Secret SCI clearance. You must meet initial and periodic suitability determinations based on favorable background investigations and updates.
  • This position requires pre-employment urinalysis to screen for illegal drug use. Drug testing must also be passed on an ongoing basis after appointment, as directed. Appointment to this position is contingent upon negative drug test results.
  • This position is considered critical-essential, and as such may be required to return to his/her assigned duty station outside of normal duty hours to provide support to USDA policymakers, particularly during crisis periods.

Qualifications

Applicants must meet all qualifications and eligibility requirements by the closing date of the announcement including basic IT competencies and specialized experience, as defined below.

Basic Requirements: Applicants must meet the following individual occupational requirements in order to be considered for the 2210, Information Management Series:
Attention to Detail - Is thorough when performing work and conscientious about attending to detail.
Customer Service - Works with clients and customers (that is, any individuals who use or receive the services or products that your work unit produces, including the general public, individuals who work in the agency, other agencies, or organizations outside the Government) to assess their needs, provide information or assistance, resolve their problems, or satisfy their expectations; knows about available products and services; is committed to providing quality products and services.
Oral Communication - Expresses information (for example, ideas or facts) to individuals or groups effectively, taking into account the audience and nature of the information (for example, technical, sensitive, controversial); makes clear and convincing oral presentations; listens to others, attends to nonverbal cues, and responds appropriately.
Problem Solving - Identifies problems; determines accuracy and relevance of information; uses sound judgment to generate and evaluate alternatives, and to make recommendations.

Minimum Qualifications: In addition to meeting the Basic Requirements as shown above, applicants must also meet the Specialized Experience requirements as shown below. If qualifying based on experience, your application or resume must clearly show that you possess the specialized experience requirements. Specialized experience is defined as experience that is typically in or related to the work of the position to be filled and has equipped you with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties of the position.

At the GS-12: Qualifying experience for GS-12 includes one year of specialized experience comparable to GS-11 which is directly related to the work of this position and which has equipped the applicant with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position. For this position, specialized experience is performing all of the following: applying requirements, methods, and techniques of security incident investigation, to include fact-finding, analysis, risk assessment, resolution of security problems; performing system administration on cyber defense applications and systems; and, evaluating and monitoring user activity data for insider risks.


Experience refers to paid and unpaid experience, including volunteer work done through National Service programs (e.g., Peace Corps, AmeriCorps) and other organizations (e.g., professional; philanthropic; religious; spiritual; community, student, social). Volunteer work helps build critical competencies and can provide valuable training and experience that translates directly to paid employment. You will receive credit for all qualifying experience, including volunteer experience.

Education

There is no education substitute for specialized experience at the GS-12 level.

Additional information

Direct Hire Authority: This announcement is issued under the direct-hire authority to recruit for positions for which there is acritical need. Selectee(s) will receive a career or career-conditional appointment in the competitive service and may be required to serve a one-year probationary period. Category rating, veteran's preference and traditional rating and raking of applicants do not apply to this public notice.

Career Transition Assistance Plan (CTAP), Reemployment Priority List (RPL), or Interagency Career Transition Assistance Plan (ICTAP): Visit the OPM website for information on how to apply as a CTAP, RPL, or ICTAP eligible. To exercise selection priority for this vacancy, CTAP/RPL/ICTAP candidates must meet the basic eligibility requirements and all selective factors. CTAP/ICTAP candidates must be rated and determined to be well qualified (or above) based on an evaluation of the competencies listed in the How You Will Be Evaluated section. When assessed through a score-based category rating method, CTAP/ICTAP applicants must receive a rating of at least 85 out of a possible 100.

This is a Testing Designated Position (TDP). Selectee must submit to a urinalysis to screen for illegal drug use prior to appointment and random testing thereafter. Final appointment and continued employment is conditional on negative results for illegal drug use.

In the event of an emergency, USDA's Office of Homeland Security (OHS) employees may be subject to 24 hour on-call availability. This service may require irregular work hours, work at locations other than the official duty station, and may include duties other than those specified in the employee's official position description. Travel requirements in support of emergency operations may be extensive in nature (weeks to months), with little advance notice, and may require employees to relocate to emergency sites that require functioning under intense physical and mental stress.

Candidates should be committed to improving the efficiency of the Federal government, passionate about the ideals of our American republic, and committed to upholding the rule of law and the United States Constitution.

Benefits

A career with the U.S. government provides employees with a comprehensive benefits package. As a federal employee, you and your family will have access to a range of benefits that are designed to make your federal career very rewarding. Opens in a new windowLearn more about federal benefits.

Eligibility for benefits depends on the type of position you hold and whether your position is full-time, part-time or intermittent. Contact the hiring agency for more information on the specific benefits offered.

How You Will Be Evaluated

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

Under the provisions of the Direct Hire Authority (DHA), veteran's preference does not apply. While veterans' preference does not apply to the DHA, veterans are encouraged to submit their documentation.

Applicants who meet the minimum qualification requirements, and who are otherwise eligible to apply for the position, will be referred for selection consideration. For more information on OPM's authorization for DHA, please visit https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/hiring-information/direct-hire-authority/.

Applicants who are displaced Federal employees within the local commuting who are requesting priority consideration under the Interagency Career Transition Assistance Program (ICTAP) or Career Transition Assistance Program (CTAP) must be determined Well Qualified using the below evaluation criteria.

Well Qualified- Meets the minimum qualifications of the position and is proficient in some, but not all, of the relevant competencies.
Qualified- Meets the minimum qualifications of the position but is not proficient in the relative competencies to a substantive degree.

Competencies:
Computer Network Defense
Cybersecurity Management
Data Systems

Your application, including the online Assessment Questionnaire, will be reviewed to determine if you meet (a) minimum qualification requirements and (b) the resume supports the answers provided to the job-specific questions. Your resume must clearly support your responses to all the questions addressing experience and education relevant to this position. Those determined to be in the qualified category will be referred to the selecting official for consideration.

Note: Any selections made under this notice will be processed as new appointments to the civil service. Current Federal employees would therefore, be given new appointments to the civil service.

Please follow all instructions carefully. Errors or omissions may affect your rating. Providing inaccurate information on Federal documents could be grounds for non-selection or disciplinary action up to including removal from the Federal service.Clicking the link below will present a preview of the application form; i.e. the online questionnaire. The application form link below will only provide a preview and does not initiate the application process. To initiate the online application process, click the "Apply" button to the right.

To view the application form, visit: https://apply.usastaffing.gov/ViewQuestionnaire/12793314

Required Documents

The following documents are required for your applicant package to be complete. Our office cannot be responsible for incompatible software, your system failure, etc. Encrypted documents will not be accepted. Failure to submit required, legible documents may result in loss of consideration.

  • Resume that includes: Personal Information: name, address, contact information; Education; Work Experience related to this position as described in the major duties including work schedule, hours worked per week, dates of employment; title, series, grade (if applicable); other qualifications. Resume cannot exceed 2 pages.
  • Surplus or displaced employees eligible for CTAP, RPL, or ICTAP priority must provide: proof of eligibility (RIF separation notice, notice of proposed removal for declining a transfer of function or directed reassignment to another commuting area, notice of disability annuity termination), SF-50 documenting separation (as applicable), current performance appraisal with rating of at least "Fully Successful" or equivalent, and your most recent SF-50 noting position, grade level, and duty location with your application per 5 CFR 330.
  • * Although Veteran's Preference does not apply to the Direct Hire Authority, upon selection Veteran's documentation may be required.

How to Apply

Please read the entire announcement and all instructions before you begin. You must complete this application process and submit all required documents electronically by 11:59p.m. Eastern Time (ET) on the closing date of this announcement.

Applying online is highly encouraged. We are available to assist you during business hours (normally 8:00a.m. - 4:00p.m., Monday - Friday). If applying online poses a hardship, contact the Agency Contact listed below well before the closing date for an alternate method. All hardship application packages must be complete and submitted no later than noon ET on the closing date of the announcement in order to be entered into the system prior to its closing.

This agency provides reasonable accommodation to applicants with disabilities on a case-by-case basis; contact the Agency Contact to request this.

To begin, click "Apply" and follow the instructions to complete the Assessment Questionnaire and attach your resume and all required documents.

NOTE: Please verify that documents you are uploading from USAJOBs transfer into the Agency's staffing system as there is a limitation to the number of documents that can be transferred. However, once in the Agency's staffing system, you will have the opportunity to upload additional documents. Uploaded documents must be less than 5MB and in one of the following document formats: GIF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, RTF, PDF, TXT or Word (DOC or DOCX). Do not upload Adobe Portfolio documents because they are not viewable.

Agency contact information

Paige Sharp
Address
Office of Homeland Security
1400 Independence Ave SW
Washington, DC 20250
US

Next steps

Your application will be reviewed to verify that you meet the eligibility and qualification requirements for the position prior to issuing referral lists to the selecting official. If further evaluation or interviews are required, you will be contacted. Log in to your USAJOBS account to check your application status.

You must choose to turn on email notifications in your USAJOBS profile if you want to receive important email notifications that may impact your applicant experience (e.g. If you start an application and do not submit it prior to the closing date, USAJOBS will send an email reminder that the closing date is approaching and your application is in an incomplete status).

Multiple positions may be filled from this announcement

Under the Fair Chance Act, agencies are not allowed to request information about an applicant's criminal history until a conditional offer of employment has been made, except as allowed for access to classified information; assignment to national security duties or positions; acceptance or retention in the armed forces; or recruitment of a Federal law enforcement officer. An applicant may submit a complaint or any other information related to an organization's alleged noncompliance with the Fair Chance Act. The complaint must be submitted within 30 calendar days of the date of the alleged noncompliance. To make a Fair Chance Act inquiry or complaint, send an email with the appropriate information to OHRM-FCAComplaint@USDA.GOV, subject line: Fair Chance Act.


Note: We cannot accept applications on behalf of Federal Agencies. Application instructions are listed within the Job Description.


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