Penetration Tester

Penetration Tester / SOC Analyst

Melbourne | Contract | Hybrid Cyber Security Role

We’re looking for an experienced Penetration Tester / SOC Analyst to join a large and complex technology environment, working across both offensive security and security operations.

This is a genuinely hands-on role, with an approximate 50/50 split between penetration testing and SOC activities. You’ll have the opportunity to identify and exploit vulnerabilities, while also using those insights to improve detection, monitoring and incident response capabilities.

What you’ll be doing

Penetration Testing

• Plan and deliver authorised penetration tests across web applications, APIs, infrastructure, identity services, cloud platforms and enterprise technologies.
• Conduct vulnerability discovery, manual validation, controlled exploitation, privilege escalation and attack-path analysis.
• Produce detailed penetration testing reports covering evidence, risk, business impact and remediation recommendations.
• Map attack activity to MITRE ATT&CK and use testing outcomes to validate security controls and SOC detection capabilities.

Security Operations

• Monitor and triage alerts across SIEM, EDR, XDR, identity, cloud, email and network security platforms.
• Investigate suspicious activity by correlating endpoint, identity, network, application and cloud telemetry.
• Support incident containment, eradication, recovery and evidence collection.
• Develop, tune and validate detection rules, dashboards, alert logic and response playbooks.
• Conduct proactive threat hunting using threat intelligence, indicators of compromise and recognised adversary behaviours.

What we’re looking for

You’ll ideally bring experience across both penetration testing and security operations within a complex enterprise environment.

We’re particularly interested in people with:

• Strong hands-on penetration testing experience across web applications, APIs, networks, infrastructure, identity and cloud.
• Practical experience with enterprise SIEM, EDR or XDR platforms, including alert triage and incident investigation.
• Strong knowledge of vulnerabilities, exploitation, privilege escalation, lateral movement, credential access and defence evasion.
• Experience developing or tuning detections using KQL, SPL, Sigma, correlation rules or behavioural analytics.
• Strong understanding of Active Directory, Microsoft Entra ID, Microsoft 365, Windows and Linux security, networking and endpoint telemetry.
• Experience with MITRE ATT&CK, threat hunting and incident response.
• Strong scripting, analytical, documentation and stakeholder communication skills.

Relevant tertiary qualifications and extensive cyber security experience are required, with recognised penetration testing, SOC, incident response or cloud security certifications highly regarded.

Why this role?

This is a great opportunity for a security professional who doesn’t want to be confined to one side of cyber.

You’ll be able to attack, investigate and improve – using penetration testing findings and real-world threat observations to strengthen security controls, telemetry, detection and incident response across a large enterprise environment.

If you’re a penetration tester with solid SOC experience, a SOC analyst with genuine offensive security capability, or a security professional who has deliberately built experience across both disciplines, we’d be keen to hear from you.

We’re proud to have won the Best Mid-Sized Recruitment Company to Work For at the 2023 TIARA Recruitment Awards, and to have been finalists, for the second year in a row, in the Client Service and Recruitment Leader of the Year categories! At Salt, our mission is Creating Futures by putting our clients, candidates, partners, and team members at the heart of everything we do. We extend our sincere appreciation to everyone who has contributed to our continued success.

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