Cyber Defense DFIR Manager

The ideal candidate pairs hands-on digital forensics and incident response expertise with a track record of maintaining incident response plans in a multi-entity environment, direct experience managing and developing a DFIR/IR team, and the program-building instincts to operationalize and mature a DFIR function that is already underway.

Responsibilities

• Incident response plan maintenance: Maintain and continuously update the enterprise incident response plan and entity-specific incident response playbooks across the Ecosystem, ensuring every entity has a current, actionable, and legally defensible plan that reflects its regulatory and operational context.
• Operationalize and mature the DFIR function: Build on the foundational elements already in place to further operationalize and mature DFIR as a dedicated capability, strengthening tooling, workflows, evidence-handling standards, and operational metrics, and growing the organization’s overall incident response maturity and bench strength over time.
• Digital forensics: Lead forensic investigations across host, network, cloud (including AWS, Azure, and containerized/Kubernetes environments), mobile (iOS/Android), and memory evidence in support of security incidents, insider risk cases, and legal/HR matters. Establish and enforce chain-of-custody and evidence-handling practices that hold up to regulatory and legal scrutiny.
• Microsoft 365 and Entra forensics: Lead forensic investigations natively within the Microsoft ecosystem, including Unified Audit Log analysis, Microsoft Purview eDiscovery and Content Search, and Graph API-based evidence collection, reflecting where the majority of the organization’s evidence resides.
• Forensic reporting and litigation readiness: Produce clear, defensible forensic findings and reports suitable for legal, regulatory, and potential litigation use, including supporting declarations or expert-witness needs as required.
• Forensic lab and evidence management: Build and maintain the organization’s forensic lab and evidence-handling infrastructure, including write-blockers, forensic workstations, secure evidence storage, and hashing/validation procedures.
• Legal hold and eDiscovery: Mature legal hold and eDiscovery processes across all entities, partnering with Legal to ensure timely preservation notices, defensible identification and collection, custodian tracking, and chain-of-custody for data subject to litigation holds or regulatory requests.
• Incident command: Serve as incident commander or deputy on significant incidents, coordinating cross-functional response across IT, legal, HR, and entity leadership. Lead post-incident reviews, root cause analysis, and tracking of corrective actions to closure.
• Table top exercises and readiness: Design, organize, and run table top exercises and simulations across the Ecosystem to test incident response plans, build muscle memory ahead of real events, and surface and remediate gaps. Own the exercise calendar and after-action reporting.
• Cross-entity standardization: Partner with entity leadership and IT to maintain consistent incident response readiness across the multi-tenant Ecosystem, including a federally regulated banking entity, adapting plans to entity-specific regulatory and reporting obligations.
• Partnership across cyber defense: Work closely with SIEM/detection engineering and other cyber defense functions to ensure a seamless handoff from detection into investigation and response, and that forensic findings feed back into detection priorities.
• AI-enabled DFIR: Evaluate and adopt AI and automation to accelerate triage, evidence correlation, and timeline reconstruction in forensic investigations, consistent with the organization’s broader agentic cyber defense direction.
• Threat intelligence integration: Incorporate relevant IOCs, TTPs, and adversary tradecraft into incident response playbooks and forensic investigation methodology.
• Reporting and stakeholder engagement: Report on incident response posture, exercise outcomes, and DFIR metrics to the Director of Cyber Defense and other stakeholders. Support audits, examinations, and legal matters as required.
• Team leadership: Build, manage, and develop a team of incident response and forensics professionals, owning hiring, performance development, workload and on-call rostering, and casework quality as the team grows alongside the function.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Security, or a related field; equivalent experience considered in lieu of a degree.
• 7+ years of progressive experience in incident response, digital forensics, or security operations, including direct experience maintaining incident response plans or playbooks.
• 3+ years of experience directly managing or mentoring incident response/forensics professionals, including performance development, workload prioritization, and on-call rostering.
• Hands-on digital forensics experience across disk, memory, network, and cloud evidence, including timeline reconstruction and malware/triage analysis.
• Experience with mobile device forensics (iOS/Android acquisition and analysis).
• Experience with cloud-native forensics across AWS, Azure, and containerized/Kubernetes environments.
• Experience with Microsoft 365/Entra-native forensic investigation, including Purview eDiscovery/Content Search, Unified Audit Log analysis, and Graph API-based evidence collection.
• Experience producing forensic reports and documentation suitable for legal or regulatory proceedings, including litigation support or expert-witness readiness.
• Experience building or maintaining forensic lab infrastructure, including write-blockers, forensic workstations, and secure evidence storage and chain-of-custody systems.
• Demonstrated experience designing, organizing, and running table top exercises or incident response simulations.
• Experience operationalizing or maturing an incident response or DFIR function, including evolving tooling, workflows, and standards within an existing program.
• Experience building or maturing legal hold and eDiscovery processes, including preservation notices, custodian tracking, and defensible collection, ideally across a multi-entity environment.
• Working knowledge of the Microsoft security ecosystem (Sentinel, Defender suite, Entra ID); proficiency with KQL, Python, or PowerShell
• Experience with forensic and IR tooling such as Magnet AXIOM, Magnet Nexus, X-Ways Forensics, and Magnet Verakey, and with EDR-integrated forensic workflows.
• Strong command of incident response and forensic frameworks, including NIST SP 800-61 and MITRE ATT&CK, and experience operationalizing threat intelligence into response work.
• Experience operating in multi-tenant, multi-entity, or MSSP-like environments a plus.
• Possession of, or ability to obtain, professional certifications such as GCFE, GCFA, GNFA, GREM, EnCE, CHFI, or CISSP.
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills, with the ability to lead calmly and clearly under pressure during live incidents and convey findings to technical and non-technical stakeholders alike.
• High level of personal integrity and the ability to professionally handle confidential and sensitive matters.