Lead Security Researcher

As a part of Rapid7's Vulnerability Intelligence team, you will be involved in industry-leading attack research to prioritize and uncover risks for organizations globally. The team focuses on helping defenders stay ahead of emergent threats and aims to keep Rapid7 at the forefront of the security community. You will collaborate with skilled technical and cross-team leaders who are deeply embedded in the security field. Key Responsibilities: - Support day-to-day research operations within the Vulnerability Intelligence team, including coordinated vulnerability disclosures and rapid responses to major security incidents. Note that there is no on-call requirement for this role. - Conduct root cause analyses of high-priority vulnerabilities and potential threats to showcase Rapid7's attacker-focused approach to vulnerability intelligence. - Develop and publish new exploits and attack techniques, working closely with the Metasploit team to integrate them into the Metasploit Framework as necessary. - Engage in zero-day vulnerability research against popular enterprise technologies such as network appliances, VPN gateways, CI/CD servers, file transfer, and backup solutions. - Provide guidance to security and threat detection engineers in developing vulnerability checks, fingerprints, and detections while explaining attack patterns to technical stakeholders across teams. Qualifications Required: - Hands-on experience with common vulnerability classes and exploitation techniques like command injection and deserialization. - Experience in producing vulnerability root cause analyses or technical writing on vulnerabilities and exploits. - Proficiency in reverse engineering, patch diffing, and exploit development. - Previous experience in developing Metasploit modules is advantageous. - Familiarity with reverse engineering at least one common enterprise software development language (e.g., Java, .NET, C/C++) is a plus. - Knowledge of security research tools such as IDA, Ghidra, Binary Ninja, Burpsuite, etc. - Ability to identify and obtain vulnerable software for analysis. - Strong empathy for the challenges faced by security teams and global organizations in today's threat landscape, along with a willingness to collaborate and mentor across teams. Rapid7's mission is to create a secure digital world for customers, the industry, and communities by leveraging expertise and passion to drive extraordinary impact. The company values diversity in backgrounds and professional experiences to generate innovative ideas and solutions. If you are enthusiastic about contributing to this role and believe your experience can make a difference, we encourage you to apply and be a part of Rapid7's dynamic and collaborative workplace. As a part of Rapid7's Vulnerability Intelligence team, you will be involved in industry-leading attack research to prioritize and uncover risks for organizations globally. The team focuses on helping defenders stay ahead of emergent threats and aims to keep Rapid7 at the forefront of the security community. You will collaborate with skilled technical and cross-team leaders who are deeply embedded in the security field. Key Responsibilities: - Support day-to-day research operations within the Vulnerability Intelligence team, including coordinated vulnerability disclosures and rapid responses to major security incidents. Note that there is no on-call requirement for this role. - Conduct root cause analyses of high-priority vulnerabilities and potential threats to showcase Rapid7's attacker-focused approach to vulnerability intelligence. - Develop and publish new exploits and attack techniques, working closely with the Metasploit team to integrate them into the Metasploit Framework as necessary. - Engage in zero-day vulnerability research against popular enterprise technologies such as network appliances, VPN gateways, CI/CD servers, file transfer, and backup solutions. - Provide guidance to security and threat detection engineers in developing vulnerability checks, fingerprints, and detections while explaining attack patterns to technical stakeholders across teams. Qualifications Required: - Hands-on experience with common vulnerability classes and exploitation techniques like command injection and deserialization. - Experience in producing vulnerability root cause analyses or technical writing on vulnerabilities and exploits. - Proficiency in reverse engineering, patch diffing, and exploit development. - Previous experience in developing Metasploit modules is advantageous. - Familiarity with reverse engineering at least one common enterprise software development language (e.g., Java, .NET, C/C++) is a plus. - Knowledge of security research tools such as IDA, Ghidra, Binary Ninja, Burpsuite, etc. - Ability to identify and obtain vulnerable software for analysis. - Strong empathy for the challenges faced by security teams and global organizations in today's threat landscape, along with a willingness to co