Senior Cyber Defence - Security Analyst

Overview

We are seeking a Senior Cyber Defence Analyst to join the Information Security team at A&O Shearman Belfast.
Please note that weekend working is a requirement for this role, with exact shift patterns to be discussed  weekend hours are eligible for a premium payment, in addition to your base salary.

The in-house Information Security team is a core part of our technology services structure with mature or evolving capability across all areas of digital security and cyber defence. We align our efforts to the NIST framework and other recognised certifications including ISO
27001 and SOC2 and strive to keep pace with the continually evolving threat landscape, in support of A&O Shearman’s strategy to lead where global complexity creates opportunity. The global team have experience advising clients on hundreds of incidents. Leveraging this experience, they feedback practical lessons learned into clients’ cyber risk management and incident response programmes.

The Cyber Defence Senior Analyst will reside within the firm’s information security team and will be based in Belfast. They will perform a critical role in solidifying the firm's security posture, focusing on the in-depth analysis, and effective response to cyber security events and incidents within their time-zone. They will also contribute to the effectiveness and cohesion of the Cyber Defence team by providing guidance to, and sharing knowledge with, more junior Cyber Defence Colleagues.

• Investigate Level 2 escalated events and alerts which have detected been through Level 1 monitoring activities by the firm’s Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) to identify potential incidents.
• Assist and advise junior colleagues during investigations where additional experience is required.

• Conduct initial triage and investigation of confirmed incidents.
• Perform containment, mitigation, and remediation activities for incidents, ensuring that any required forensic evidence is gathered and documented appropriately along the process.
• Participate in security incident response exercises and contribute to post-exercise reviews.
• Be part of the Cyber Defence on-call rota, which may require out-of-hours work.
• Pick-up and hand-off incident response activities with the rest of the Belfast Cyber Defence team to other teams in different time-zones across the globe, as per our 24-7 follow-the-sun global model.

• Maintain and improve playbooks and process documentation for Cyber Defence.
• Ensure documentation reflects current threat landscapes and operational practices.
• Implement and enhance cyber defence tooling and processes under senior oversight.
• Develop new detection definitions and use cases for monitoring tools.

• Mentor junior colleagues to support their professional development and operational effectiveness.
• Collaborate with other teams (e.g. Information Security, IT) to implement security controls and raise awareness.
• Support the Threat and Vulnerability Management team in remediation activities by executing system and configuration changes.
• Maintain awareness of current and emerging cyber threats, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) using threat intelligence insights from the Threat and Vulnerability Management team, applying this knowledge in daily operations.
• Provide cyber defence guidance to business stakeholders, translating technical concepts into business language.
• Maintain awareness of current and emerging cyber threats, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
• Assist the Information Security GRC team with client queries and audits from a cyber defence perspective.

• Experience in a security operations or similar technical security role, operationally in at least four of the following domains:
  Security engineering, Alert triaging, Rule writing, Incident response, Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR), Threat intelligence and management, Vulnerability management, or Security control testing.
• Strong understanding of networking and routing protocols (e.g. TCP/IP) and core services (e.g.…