Level 1 Vulnerability Researcher Responsibilities

• Provide engineering and vulnerability research results related to hardware components, software applications, and operating systems to determine functionality, code structure, and system design for use in the discovery of initial access capabilities.
• Actively debug software and troubleshoot issues with software crashes and programmatic flow
• Provide written reports, proof-of-concept code, prototypes, and hands-on demonstrations of reverse engineering and vulnerability analysis results, and
• Provide/author and participate in technical presentations on assigned projects

Level 1 Vulnerability Researcher Qualifications

• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related field, or minimum two (2) years experience in computer science, information systems, or network engineering 
• Minimum two (2) years experience programming in Assembly, C, C#, C++, Perl, or Python.
• Minimum two (2) years of demonstrated experience in either hardware or software reverse engineering.

Level 2 Vulnerability Researcher Responsibilities

• Provide engineering and vulnerability research results related to hardware components, software applications, and operating systems to determine functionality, code structure, and system design for use in the discovery of initial access capabilities.
• Actively debug software and troubleshoot issues with software crashes and programmatic flow
• Ability to perform source code analysis in an effort to discover software flaws, and
• provide/author documentation on the impact and severity of the flaw
• Ability to develop proof-of-concept exploits against research targets, prototypes, and hands-on demonstrations of vulnerability analysis results
• Provide/author and participate in technical presentations on assigned projects
• Lead reverse engineering and vulnerability research of hardware components, software applications, and operating systems to determine functionality, code structure, and circuit design for the use in the discovery of initial access capabilities 

Level 2 Vulnerability Researcher Qualifications

• Meets all qualifications of a CNO Vulnerability Researcher/Analyst I, but has the following increased experience and skill levels
• Minimum four (4) years experience programming in Assembly, C, C#, C++, Perl, or Python for a production environment
• Minimum of five (5) years contiguous experience in computer science, information systems, or network engineering; or Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science or related field plus minimum three (3) years contiguous experience
• Minimum four (4) years demonstrated experience in either hardware or software reverse engineering

Level 3 Vulnerability Researcher Responsibilities

• Provide engineering and vulnerability research results related to hardware components, software applications, and operating systems to determine functionality, code structure, and system design for use in the discovery of initial access capabilities.
• Lead efforts to debug software and troubleshoot issues with software crashes and programmatic flow
• Ability to perform source code analysis in an effort to discover software flaws, and provide/author documentation on the impact and severity of the flaw
• Ability to develop robust exploits (advancements beyond initial proof-of-concept such as version coverage, decreased failure rate, handling edge cases, etc.) against research targets, prototypes, and hands-on demonstrations of vulnerability analysis results 
• Edit/Approve and participate in technical presentations on assigned projects
• Subject Matter Expert and Leader of at least one technology area responsible for reverse engineering and vulnerability analysis of hardware components, software applications, and operating systems to determine functionality, code structure, and circuit design for the use in the discovery of initial access capabilities 

Level 3 Vulnerability Researcher Qualifications

• Meets all qualifications of a CNO Vulnerability Researcher/Analyst II, but has the following increased experience and skill levels
• Proven results from participation in vulnerability discovery efforts within the last twelve (12) months
• Demonstrated ability to discover multiple previously unknown vulnerabilities (0-day) across multiple versions of similar technologies.
• Demonstrated ability to discover multiple previously unknown vulnerabilities (0-day) that achieve reliable remote code execution and/or reliable privilege escalation.

Desired Skills for All Levels

• Experience programming in Assembly, C, C#, C++, Perl, or Python with a focus on an understanding of system interactions with these libraries vs. production-style environments
• Use of Unix/Windows system API’s
• Understanding of virtual function tables in C++
• Heap allocation strategies and protections
• Experience with very large software projects a plus
• Kernel programming experience (WDK / Unix||Linux) a significant plus
• Hardware/Software reverse engineering, which often includes the use of tools (e.g., IDA Pro, Ghidra, Binary Ninja) to identify abstract concepts about the code flow of an application.
• For Hardware reverse engineering, candidates are expected to have performed analysis of embedded devices, focusing primarily on identifying the software stack and points of entry to the hardware (e.g., not interested in FPGA reverse engineering, or other circuit reverse engineering).
• Candidates who can merge low-level knowledge about the compilation of C/C++ code with a nuanced understanding of system design to identify and exploit common vulnerability patterns. Candidates should be comfortable with, at a minimum, user-mode stack-based buffer overflows, and heap-based exploitation strategies.

Desired Qualifications