1. Alert Monitoring and Triage

• Monitor and respond to security alerts from SIEM or from various security tools or instrumentation such as endpoint security, secure email gateway, firewalls, IDS, DLP, etc.

• Acknowledge new alerts promptly and begin meaningful triage based on severity, context, and available evidence.

• Review alerts using established SOC triage playbooks and standard case disposition guidance.

• Determine whether activity is true positive, benign positive, false positive, or requires further investigation.

2. Investigation and Analysis

• Perform advanced incident response activities including discovery, threat analysis and correlation, response, remediation, and containment, at times involving network and endpoint forensics.

• Apply investigative logic using frameworks such as the Cyber Kill Chain and MITRE ATT&CK to understand attacker behavior, scope incidents, and assess likely impact.

• Validate whether reported activity is benign, expected, suspicious, or malicious before closure, escalation, or containment recommendation.

• Correlate evidence from SIEM, EDR, cloud, email, and network sources where applicable.

3. Case Documentation and Escalation

• Document investigations clearly and completely so that work can be reviewed, continued, or audited without repeating prior analysis.

• Produce escalation notes that include alert summary, affected assets, investigative steps performed, evidence gathered, and analyst hypothesis.

• Escalate cases when deeper response, stakeholder coordination, or containment approval is required.

• Ensure escalations are actionable and complete enough for immediate continuation by senior analysts, leads, or partner teams.

• Contribute to overall SOC processes, documentation, metrics, and reporting.

4. Containment and Response Support

• Support containment and response actions by validating risk, recommending next steps, and coordinating with leads, system owners, and supporting teams as needed.

• Participate in the investigation lifecycle from alert handling through validation, communication, and closure.

• Contribute to timely incident scoping and prioritization to improve mean time to detect, respond, and contain.

• Support or drive the remediation or closure of control gaps, risks, and findings from audits and certification activities.

5. Detection and Operational Improvement

• Identify recurring false positives, noise patterns, and weak detections, then recommend tuning opportunities to improve SOC efficiency.

• Contribute to SOC initiatives that enhance analyst productivity, detection quality, and operational maturity.

• Help translate observed attack patterns and investigative learnings into improved rules, playbooks, dashboards, and use cases.

Core Deliverables

• Accurate and timely handling of security alerts and cases.

• Well-documented investigations and escalation artifacts.

• High-quality incident analysis aligned to SOC playbooks and threat frameworks.

• Recommendations for detection tuning, false-positive reduction, and process improvement.

Minimum Qualifications

• Experience in security monitoring, incident response, or security operations center work.

• Working knowledge of SIEM, EDR, email security, cloud security, and related security monitoring tools.

• Ability to analyze logs, investigate suspicious activity, and form evidence-based conclusions.

• Familiarity with MITRE ATT&CK, attacker behavior mapping, or comparable investigative frameworks.

• Strong technical documentation and case-writing skills.

• Ability to balance speed, accuracy, and sound judgment in a high-volume operational environment.

Preferred Qualifications

• At least 2 years of SOC or IR experience.

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science, IT, or directly related field, or equivalent work experience.

• Strong understanding of SIEM platforms and hands-on experience with security technologies such as SIEM, IDS, DLP, vulnerability scanning, firewalls, endpoint security, or email security systems.

• Exposure to threat hunting, detection engineering feedback loops, or SOAR-oriented process design.

• Experience coordinating with application owners, infrastructure teams, or supporting functions during incident review and response.

• Willingness to cover 24/7 working hours following a sustainable rotation schedule and at times cover on-call duties.

• Practical experience in reverse engineering, malware forensics, or penetration testing, particularly within finance and fintech operations, is highly advantageous.

• Advanced security certifications (e.g., CC, GCIH, CDSA, CompTia Sec+, SANS/GIAC, CEH) are highly advantageous.

Competencies

• Investigative reasoning

• Threat analysis and contextual decision-making

• Technical writing and case documentation

• Tool fluency across SOC platforms

• Pattern recognition and false-positive identification

• Stakeholder coordination during investigations

• Technical security project support and collaboration

• Cross-functional team collaboration

• Continuous improvement mindset

Success Measures

A successful Security Operations Specialist consistently demonstrates strong alert handling coverage, high triage quality, timely acknowledgement of alerts, complete escalation documentation, active identification of false positives, delivery of SOC improvement initiatives, and continuous development of technical capability.