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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for IT Security Consultant

💰 $ - $

IT SecurityCybersecurityConsulting

🎯 Role Definition

The IT Security Consultant is a cybersecurity specialist who partners with enterprise clients to design, implement and validate security controls across networks, cloud environments, applications and endpoints. This role combines technical delivery (vulnerability assessments, penetration testing, SIEM tuning), advisory services (risk assessments, security architecture advice, compliance mapping), and operational support (incident response, threat hunting, security monitoring) to reduce organizational risk and maintain regulatory compliance. Ideal candidates demonstrate hands-on experience with cloud security (AWS, Azure, GCP), security frameworks (NIST, ISO 27001, CIS), and a proven track record delivering measurable security improvements.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Security Analyst / SOC Analyst transitioning into consultancy roles
  • Network Engineer or Systems Engineer with a specialization in cybersecurity
  • Junior Penetration Tester or Vulnerability Analyst

Advancement To:

  • Senior IT Security Consultant / Principal Security Consultant
  • Security Architect / Enterprise Security Architect
  • Information Security Manager / Head of Cybersecurity
  • Director of Security Consulting / Cybersecurity Practice Lead

Lateral Moves:

  • Cloud Security Engineer
  • Incident Response / Digital Forensics Specialist
  • Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) Consultant

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Conduct comprehensive vulnerability assessments and penetration tests across on-premises, hybrid, and cloud environments, documenting evidence, risk ratings, and prioritized remediation recommendations aligned to CVSS and business impact.
  • Design and architect secure cloud solutions (AWS, Azure, GCP) including networking, identity, secrets management, encryption at rest/in transit, and configuration hardening based on CIS benchmarks and cloud provider best practices.
  • Lead technical incident response engagements: triage alerts, contain threats, perform root cause analysis, produce incident reports, and advise on remediation and long-term detection improvements.
  • Develop and tune SIEM rules, detection logic, and dashboards (Splunk, QRadar, Elastic, Azure Sentinel) to reduce false positives and accelerate threat detection and response times.
  • Perform architecture and design reviews for new and existing applications, recommending secure-by-design changes including threat modeling, secure SDLC practices, and application-layer defensive controls.
  • Execute threat hunting and threat intelligence correlation to identify targeted activity, bespoke malware, lateral movement, and persistence mechanisms across enterprise environments.
  • Conduct risk assessments and security gap analyses mapped to NIST CSF, ISO 27001, SOC2, PCI-DSS, and GDPR, producing remediation roadmaps and prioritized risk treatment plans for stakeholders.
  • Provide hands-on remediation guidance, playbooks, and runbooks for security controls such as IDS/IPS, web application firewalls, endpoint protection (EDR), and secure configuration baselines.
  • Deliver red team / purple team exercises and capture-the-flag style assessments to validate detection and response capabilities and to improve SOC maturity with measurable KPIs.
  • Lead security awareness and phishing simulation programs, analyze results, and coach business units to reduce human risk and improve incident reporting rates.
  • Advise on identity and access management strategies including least-privilege designs, role-based access control (RBAC), multi-factor authentication (MFA) deployment, and privileged access management (PAM) solutions.
  • Implement and validate encryption and key management solutions including TLS/SSL configurations, certificate lifecycle management, and hardware security module (HSM) integrations.
  • Support procurement and technical evaluation of security products and managed services, producing vendor assessments, proof-of-concept plans, and TCO/security ROI analyses.
  • Prepare, review, and present executive-level security reports, board briefings, and compliance attestation documentation that translate technical findings into business risk and recommended investments.
  • Coordinate cross-functional remediation projects with engineering, operations, legal, and compliance teams to ensure timely and auditable closure of security findings and to align fixes with release cycles.
  • Create and maintain security baselines, standard operating procedures, and automation scripts to enforce configuration drift prevention and to accelerate secure deployments.
  • Develop incident playbooks and runbooks for crisis scenarios, including ransomware, data exfiltration, insider threat, and supply chain compromise, and run tabletop exercises to validate readiness.
  • Perform third-party / vendor security assessments, request and analyze SOC reports, and recommend contractual controls, monitoring requirements, and remediation clauses.
  • Mentor and train internal teams and junior consultants in secure coding practices, threat modeling, and hands-on defensive techniques to raise organizational cyber maturity.
  • Drive continuous improvement by analyzing security metrics, incident post-mortems, and audit findings to implement process, tooling, and policy updates that reduce recurrence and exposure.
  • Maintain current knowledge of emerging threats, exploit techniques, and remediation technologies; synthesize intelligence into actionable guidance and update defenses accordingly.
  • Prepare and support external audits and compliance assessments, compiling evidence, managing auditor requests, and ensuring corrective action plans are implemented and tracked.

Secondary Functions

  • Provide on-call security advisory support during critical incidents and major change windows to reduce operational risk.
  • Assist in creating security-related procurement language and technical requirements for RFPs and vendor contracts.
  • Collaborate with DevOps and SRE teams to integrate security scanning into CI/CD pipelines and to remediate build-time security failures.
  • Contribute to the organization’s security strategy, roadmap, and budgeting by identifying gaps, proposing initiatives, and estimating effort and cost.
  • Lead small to medium project teams for security implementations, tracking milestones, dependencies, and stakeholder communication.
  • Support data privacy initiatives by partnering with privacy officers to perform data flow mapping, classification, and protection recommendations.
  • Stay engaged with industry professional communities, attending conferences, contributing to open-source tooling, and publishing whitepapers or case studies when appropriate.
  • Assist HR and internal stakeholders with security vetting, role-based access reviews, and onboarding/offboarding security checks.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Vulnerability Assessment & Penetration Testing — hands-on experience with tools like Nessus, Qualys, Burp Suite, Metasploit, and manual exploitation techniques.
  • Cloud Security — deep knowledge of AWS/Azure/GCP security services (IAM, KMS, GuardDuty, Security Center) and cloud-native hardening best practices.
  • Security Monitoring & SIEM — practical experience designing and tuning detection rules, dashboards, and alerting in Splunk, Elastic, QRadar, or Azure Sentinel.
  • Incident Response & Forensics — ability to lead IR engagements, preserve evidence, perform memory/disk analysis, and produce post-incident reports.
  • Security Frameworks & Compliance — experience mapping controls to NIST CSF/800-53, ISO 27001, SOC2, PCI-DSS, and GDPR requirements.
  • Network & Endpoint Security — expertise in firewalls, IDS/IPS, VPNs, NAC, EDR platforms (CrowdStrike, Carbon Black, SentinelOne), and secure network segmentation.
  • Identity & Access Management — design and operational knowledge of SSO, SAML/OAuth/OIDC, MFA, RBAC, and PAM solutions.
  • Secure Development & DevSecOps — experience integrating SAST/DAST/SCA into pipelines, threat modeling, and secure coding guidelines.
  • Cryptography & Key Management — practical understanding of TLS, PKI, encryption algorithms, and HSM/vendor key management.
  • Scripting & Automation — proficiency in Python, PowerShell, or Bash for automation, evidence collection, remediation scripting, and tool integrations.
  • Red Team / Offensive Techniques — familiarity with adversary tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs), and conducting realistic attack simulations.
  • Threat Intelligence & Threat Hunting — ability to consume and operationalize threat feeds, IOC enrichment, and hunt for anomalies across telemetry.
  • Audit & Remediation Management — experience compiling audit evidence, tracking findings, and ensuring auditable remediation closure.
  • Container & Kubernetes Security — experience securing container images, registries, and K8s configurations and admission controllers.
  • Data Protection Controls — knowledge of DLP, tokenization, masking, and secure data lifecycle management.

Soft Skills

  • Excellent verbal and written communication: translate technical findings into business risk and clear remediation plans for executives and technical teams.
  • Stakeholder management: build trust with CIOs, engineering leads, compliance, and third-party vendors to drive security outcomes.
  • Problem-solving and analytical thinking: triage complex incidents and synthesize root causes with pragmatic fixes.
  • Project management: prioritize concurrent engagements, manage timelines, and coordinate cross-functional deliverables.
  • Training and mentoring: coach junior staff, run workshops, and upskill internal teams on security best practices.
  • Client-facing and consultative attitude: deliver professional advisory services with diplomacy and clear documentation.
  • Adaptability and continuous learning: rapidly adopt new tools, techniques, and emerging threat concepts.
  • Attention to detail and strong documentation discipline for reproducible findings and audit trails.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

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

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree in Cybersecurity, Information Security, Computer Science, or MBA with technology focus.
  • Relevant industry certifications such as CISSP, CISM, OSCP, CEH, CompTIA Security+, CCSP.

Relevant Fields of Study:

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

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–7 years of progressive experience in information security, security operations, or consulting roles.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years consulting or corporate experience with evidence of leading security assessments, cloud security implementations, and incident response.
  • Proven track record across multiple verticals (financial services, healthcare, technology, government) and familiarity with relevant regulatory regimes (GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS).
  • Demonstrable hands-on experience with SIEMs, EDRs, cloud security tooling, and offensive/defensive security exercises.
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