Senior Embedded Vulnerability Researcher

Overview

Draper is an independent, nonprofit research and development company headquartered in Cambridge, MA. The 2,000+ employees of Draper tackle important national challenges with a promise of delivering successful and usable solutions. From military defense and space exploration to biomedical engineering, lives often depend on the solutions we provide. Our multidisciplinary teams of engineers and scientists work in a collaborative environment that inspires the cross-fertilization of ideas necessary for true innovation. For more information about Draper, visit www.draper.com.

Our work is very important to us, but so is our life outside of work. Draper supports many programs to improve work-life balance including workplace flexibility, employee clubs ranging from photography to yoga, health and finance workshops, off site social events and discounts to local museums and cultural activities. If this specific job opportunity and the chance to work at a nationally renowned R&D innovation company appeals to you, apply now www.draper.com/careers.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Draper is committed to creating a diverse environment and is proud to be an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer.   We understand the value of diversity and its impact on a high-performance culture.  All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, veteran status, or genetic information.   

Draper is committed to providing access, equal opportunity and reasonable accommodation for individuals with disabilities in employment, its services, programs, and activities. To request reasonable accommodation, please contact hr@draper.com.

Responsibilities

Draper’s Offensive Cyber Security Group is looking for dedicated individuals to develop tailored solutions to meet our DoD and IC Sponsor directives. Our organization's not-for-profit status ensures a capability-driven focus on the United States of America's national interests that allows us to address some of our Nation's most pressing challenges. Due to the variety of USG organizational needs, our technical efforts and opportunities vary from conventional cyber operations enablement tooling to embedded vulnerability research and exploit development on a wide range of devices and systems.

The Offensive Cyber team has a diverse set of skillsets and backgrounds to accommodate a variety of unique Sponsor requests and we are looking for talented and enthusiastic individuals to join and lead our increasingly growing set of programs. This position has the opportunity to contribute to numerous development efforts on a variety of multi-disciplinary teams; our technical efforts commonly include: hardware and software reverse engineering, exploit development, firmware modification, and red teaming.

Qualifications

Security Clearance

A U.S. citizen with the ability to obtain and maintain a Top Secret security clearance. Existing and active TS//SCI strongly preferred.

Education Background and Work Experience

Candidates must satisfy at least one of the following combinations:

Traditional Educational Degrees in CS, CSE, EE, Mathematics or related field:

• MS with 3+ years of relevant experience
• 5 Year BS+MS with 4+ years of relevant experience
• BS or equivalent with 5+ years of relevant experience
• AD with 7+ years of relevant experience

Non-Traditional Education or Work Experience:

• 8+ years of relevant experience

Technical Experience and Skillsets

Program Analysis, Reverse Engineering, and Vulnerability Research

• Proficiency with modern program analysis methodologies and techniques (static or dynamic)
• Proficiency with reverse-engineering assessment techniques for firmware or embedded systems
• Familiarity with binary file and filesystem structures and formats
• Hands-on proficiency with program analysis and reverse engineering tooling such as: Ghidra, IDA, GDB, RR
• Hands-on proficiency with physical instrumentation or hardware modification, soldering, JTAG/SWD/BDM, and eMMC/NAND/SPI flash data extraction
• Proficiency of exploitation techniques for embedded devices across various platforms and architectures
• Familiarity of network stack and internals

System and Architecture

• Familiarity of operating system internals throughout user mode, kernel mode, and during boot processes for at least one of the following: GNU/Linux, RTOS
• Familiarity with computer architectures and assembly: x86, ARM, Hexagon, PowerPC

Languages and Development

• Proficiency with programming languages such as: C, C++, Python, Java
• Familiarity with scripting languages such as: Bash, Powershell
• Familiarity in development environments for GNU/Linux or Windows

Technical Leadership and Business Development

• Successful history in authoring of technical proposals and documents
• Leadership in advanced R&D initiatives, including government-funded projects
• Leadership of critical programs with more than two full time staff members
• Proficient in teamwork and communication with diverse audiences

Preferred Qualifications

• • Experience with side channel attacks (glitching) to place components and/or devices into altered states to bypass protections.
  • Familiarity with custom filesystem extraction and modification, removal and/or regeneration of OOB/CRC data.
  • Familiarity with bus and protocol analysis.