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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Internet Security Analyst

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SecurityCybersecuritySOCInternet Security Analyst

🎯 Role Definition

The Internet Security Analyst is a cybersecurity professional responsible for protecting an organization’s internet-facing assets, monitoring and responding to security incidents, performing threat detection and hunting, and ensuring continuous hardening of systems both on-premises and in cloud environments. This role operates primarily within a Security Operations Center (SOC) or distributed cybersecurity team and requires deep familiarity with SIEM platforms, EDR solutions, network security technologies, log analysis, incident response procedures, and threat intelligence — all delivered with clear communication to technical teams and business stakeholders.

Key SEO keywords: Internet Security Analyst, cybersecurity, SOC, incident response, threat detection, SIEM, EDR, vulnerability management, cloud security, network security.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • SOC Analyst I / Junior SOC Analyst
  • Network Operations or Network Engineer with security responsibilities
  • Systems Administrator with hands-on security exposure

Advancement To:

  • Senior Internet Security Analyst / SOC Senior Analyst
  • Incident Response Team Lead / SOC Team Lead
  • Threat Hunter / Threat Intelligence Lead
  • Security Operations Manager or Cybersecurity Architect

Lateral Moves:

  • Threat Intelligence Analyst
  • Cloud Security Engineer
  • Vulnerability Management or Penetration Testing Specialist
  • Compliance & Risk Analyst

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Monitor security telemetry from SIEM, EDR, firewall, IDS/IPS, web proxies, and cloud native logs in real time to detect, triage, and prioritize internet-facing threats and suspicious activity, documenting findings and recommended actions in ticketing systems.
  • Lead technical incident response activities for internet-facing incidents including containment, eradication, recovery and post-incident forensics; coordinate cross-functional response with network, systems, cloud and application owners.
  • Conduct deep-dive investigations of alerts by correlating logs, packet captures, endpoint artifacts, and threat intelligence to determine root cause, scope, and business impact of security events.
  • Perform threat hunting across network and endpoint data sets, using hypotheses derived from threat intelligence, behavioral analytics, and attacker TTPs to proactively identify compromise on internet-facing systems.
  • Tune and maintain SIEM detection use cases and correlation rules (e.g., Splunk, IBM QRadar, Elastic SIEM) to reduce false positives and increase detection fidelity for web servers, reverse proxies, APIs, and edge services.
  • Manage and operate endpoint detection and response (EDR) tools (such as CrowdStrike, Carbon Black, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint) to analyze malware, suspicious process activity, persistence mechanisms, and lateral movement related to internet attacks.
  • Execute vulnerability scanning and web application scans (e.g., Nessus, Qualys, Burp Suite) for internet-facing assets, validate findings, and coordinate remediation with DevOps and network teams.
  • Conduct network security monitoring and analysis—review packet captures, NetFlow, and proxy logs—to identifying exfiltration, command-and-control communications, anomalous port usage, and DDoS indicators.
  • Perform malware triage and static/dynamic analysis of suspicious samples to identify indicators of compromise (IOCs), behavioral signatures, and recommended containment actions.
  • Create, update, and follow incident response playbooks and runbooks for common internet threat scenarios (phishing-driven web compromise, public-facing application exploitation, credential-stuffing).
  • Implement and validate access controls, secure configurations and hardening for internet-exposed assets, including firewalls, load balancers, reverse proxies, and cloud perimeter services.
  • Maintain and enrich threat intelligence feeds and IOC repositories; map external intelligence to internal telemetry to prioritize defensive measures and blocking policies.
  • Collaborate with DevOps and cloud engineering teams to review CI/CD pipelines, IaC templates, and container images for security issues that could expose internet services to compromise.
  • Validate and manage web application firewall (WAF) rulesets and proxy/blocking policies to defend against OWASP Top 10 threats and zero-day exploitation attempts on public endpoints.
  • Develop detection content (search queries, parsers, dashboards, alerts) and automation playbooks (SOAR) to accelerate investigation and remediation of internet-facing incidents.
  • Lead evidence collection and forensic acquisition on endpoints, servers and cloud instances to support legal, compliance, or breach disclosure requirements while maintaining chain-of-custody.
  • Provide timely and actionable incident reporting to stakeholders, documenting timeline, technical findings, risk impact, and remediation status in post-incident reports and dashboards.
  • Participate in tabletop exercises, red/blue team engagements and penetration test validation to validate controls and improve response readiness for internet-facing compromise scenarios.
  • Work with identity and access management teams to detect and respond to suspicious login patterns, credential abuse, and privilege escalation that affect internet-accessible services.
  • Review and ensure alignment with regulatory and compliance frameworks (e.g., NIST, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS) as they relate to the security posture of internet-exposed infrastructure and services.
  • Maintain and operate security tooling inventory and ensure integrations between threat intel, SIEM, EDR, and ticketing platforms remain functioning and current.
  • Mentor junior analysts on incident investigation techniques, evidence preservation, log parsing, and adversary behavioral analysis specific to internet threat vectors.
  • Automate repetitive monitoring and response tasks via scripting (Python, PowerShell) and SOAR playbooks to reduce mean time to detect (MTTD) and mean time to respond (MTTR).
  • Conduct regular risk assessments for internet-facing systems, quantify exposure, and recommend compensating controls or changes to architecture to mitigate high-risk vectors.
  • Liaise with third-party providers, MSSPs, and upstream vendors to coordinate phishing escalations, DDoS mitigations, or collaborative incident responses for internet incidents.
  • Maintain situational awareness of emerging internet threats, zero-days, and trending attack campaigns by reviewing industry reports, vendor advisories and threat intelligence services.

Secondary Functions

  • Support ad-hoc security data requests and exploratory analysis to answer business questions related to internet security posture.
  • Contribute to the organization's security strategy and roadmap specifically for internet-facing assets and external threat surface reduction.
  • Collaborate with application teams, cloud engineers, and business units to translate security requirements for internet services into actionable engineering remediation tasks.
  • Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies to prioritize security stories and remediation tasks that impact internet exposure.
  • Document procedures, build runbooks for new detections and maintain a knowledge base for common internet-facing incident scenarios.
  • Provide periodic training and awareness sessions to operations, development, and help-desk teams on internet threat trends and secure deployment practices.
  • Assist in vendor evaluations for internet security controls such as WAF, DDoS mitigation, bot management and CDN security features.
  • Track and report SOC metrics and KPIs related to internet threat detection, incidence response times, and remediation SLAs.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • SIEM platforms: experience creating detections, dashboards, parsers and workflows in Splunk, IBM QRadar, Elastic, or similar enterprise SIEMs.
  • Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR): hands-on with tools such as CrowdStrike Falcon, Carbon Black, Microsoft Defender for Endpoint, or SentinelOne for endpoint investigations and containment.
  • Network security monitoring: deep knowledge of IDS/IPS, packet analysis (Wireshark/tcpdump), NetFlow, proxy logs, and network telemetry interpretation.
  • Malware analysis and reverse engineering basics: ability to perform static and dynamic analysis or work with analysts who do, and extract IOCs from samples.
  • Vulnerability scanning and web application assessment tools: Nessus, Qualys, Burp Suite, and familiarity with OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities.
  • Cloud security: experience with AWS, Azure, or GCP logging, security groups, WAF, and cloud-native security services (CloudTrail, GuardDuty, Azure Sentinel).
  • Web application and API security knowledge: familiarity with common web vulnerabilities, authentication flaws and secure configuration of web servers and APIs.
  • Incident response and forensics tools: FTK, Autopsy, Volatility, Sysinternals, and proven capability to collect and preserve digital evidence.
  • Scripting and automation: Python, PowerShell, Bash for automation of detection, investigation and remediation tasks; experience building SOAR playbooks (Demisto, Phantom, Swimlane).
  • Identity & access management (IAM): Active Directory, Azure AD, SAML/OAuth, MFA implementation and detection of credential abuse.
  • Security protocols and networking: strong understanding of TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP/S, TLS, routing, and common attack techniques that exploit these protocols.
  • Logging & telemetry architecture: experience designing log collection, retention strategies, parsing sources, and integrating telemetry into detection pipelines.
  • Threat intelligence: ability to consume and operationalize third-party threat feeds, enrich alerts, and map adversary TTPs using frameworks like MITRE ATT&CK.
  • WAF and perimeter defenses: configuring, testing, and tuning WAF rulesets and firewall policies for internet-facing applications.
  • Compliance & frameworks: practical knowledge of NIST CSF, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS requirements as they apply to internet-exposed services.

Soft Skills

  • Strong written and verbal communication: able to translate technical findings into concise reports and explain risk to non-technical stakeholders.
  • Analytical problem solving: methodical approach to triage complex incidents and synthesize evidence from diverse telemetry sources.
  • Collaboration and influence: experience working cross-functionally with engineering, DevOps, legal, and business teams during incidents and remediation.
  • Attention to detail: meticulous documentation, evidence handling and ability to spot subtle indicators in noisy datasets.
  • Prioritization and time management: manage concurrent investigations and escalate appropriately when business impact is high.
  • Teaching and mentoring: coach junior analysts and provide constructive feedback to improve team detection and response capabilities.
  • Adaptability and continuous learning: stay current with evolving internet threats and new defensive tooling or cloud capabilities.
  • Professionalism under pressure: maintain composure and structured decision-making during high-severity incidents.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Cybersecurity, Information Technology, or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Master's degree in Cybersecurity, Information Assurance, or related technical field is a plus.
  • Professional certifications such as CISSP, GCIH, GCIA, CEH, OSCP, or Splunk Certified are strongly preferred.

Relevant Fields of Study:

  • Computer Science
  • Information Security / Cybersecurity
  • Network Engineering
  • Information Systems
  • Digital Forensics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 2–5 years in a SOC, incident response, network security or related cybersecurity role.

Preferred: 4–7+ years with demonstrable experience responding to internet-facing incidents, operating SIEM and EDR platforms, performing threat hunting, and managing cloud or perimeter security for production services.

Certifications and additional expectations (highly desirable):

  • Splunk Certified Power User or Administrator, Elastic Security experience, or equivalent SIEM certification.
  • EDR vendor certifications (CrowdStrike, Carbon Black, Microsoft).
  • Incident Response / Forensics certifications (GCIH, GCFA).
  • Strong track record of documented incident investigations, incident reports, and playbook development.
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