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Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for IT Security Specialist

💰 $ - $

Information SecurityCybersecurityIT

🎯 Role Definition

The IT Security Specialist is a mid-level cybersecurity professional responsible for protecting the organization’s information systems, networks, and data from internal and external threats. This role combines hands-on technical expertise in security operations, vulnerability management, and incident response with risk-based decision making, policy enforcement, and collaboration with application, infrastructure, and business stakeholders to ensure compliance with industry standards (NIST, ISO 27001), regulatory frameworks (PCI-DSS, GDPR, HIPAA) and internal security policies.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

  • Junior Security Analyst / SOC Analyst
  • Network Administrator or Systems Administrator with security focus
  • IT Support Engineer with security experience

Advancement To:

  • Senior Security Specialist / Security Engineer
  • Security Architect or Threat Intelligence Analyst
  • Security Operations Center (SOC) Lead or Manager
  • Information Security Manager → Director of Security → CISO (long-term)

Lateral Moves:

  • Cloud Security Engineer / DevSecOps Engineer
  • Compliance & Risk Analyst
  • Identity & Access Management (IAM) Specialist
  • Digital Forensics / Incident Response (DFIR) Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

  • Lead and execute incident detection, triage, containment, eradication and recovery activities for security events and incidents; conduct root cause analysis, document post-incident reports and drive remediation with IT and application teams to reduce mean time to resolution (MTTR).
  • Maintain and tune Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) systems (e.g., Splunk, QRadar, Elastic) to improve detection coverage, reduce false positives, author correlation rules and implement playbooks for automated alerting and response.
  • Perform regular vulnerability management tasks including discovery, scanning (Nessus, Qualys), risk prioritization, validation of findings, and coordination with patch management and engineering teams to ensure timely remediation and risk acceptance.
  • Design, deploy and manage host- and network-based security controls (firewalls, IDS/IPS, WAF, NAC) to protect on-premises and cloud environments; recommend architecture changes to improve security posture and segmentation.
  • Lead or participate in threat hunting initiatives using telemetry from endpoints, network devices and cloud logs to proactively identify signs of compromise, anomalous behavior, or emerging adversary TTPs (tactics, techniques, and procedures).
  • Manage endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions (e.g., CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Microsoft Defender) including deployment, policy configuration, alert investigation and containment procedures across Windows, macOS and Linux assets.
  • Implement and maintain identity and access management controls including RBAC/ABAC design, privileged access management (PAM), multifactor authentication (MFA), SSO integrations and periodic entitlement reviews to minimize privilege creep and identity-based risks.
  • Conduct security assessments, penetration testing coordination and application security reviews; work with developers to remediate vulnerabilities, perform secure code reviews and integrate security into CI/CD pipelines.
  • Develop, review and enforce information security policies, standards and procedures; ensure alignment with regulatory requirements and communicate policy changes and training needs to stakeholders.
  • Lead vendor security assessments and third-party risk evaluations; review contracts, data processing agreements, and security questionnaires to ensure adequate protection of sensitive data and contractual compliance.
  • Perform cloud security controls review and configuration management for AWS/Azure/GCP including identity controls, IAM policies, VPC/subnet design, encryption at rest/in transit, security groups, logging and cloud-native security services.
  • Manage encryption, PKI and key management strategies for data protection across applications, storage and communications; recommend and implement appropriate cryptographic controls.
  • Build and maintain security baselines, hardening guides and secure configuration standards for servers, endpoints, network devices and cloud services to limit exposure and reduce attack surface.
  • Monitor and report security metrics, KPIs and risk posture to technical leadership and business stakeholders; produce executive summaries, dashboards and compliance evidence for audits.
  • Support business continuity planning and disaster recovery tests from a security perspective; ensure that backup, failover and recovery procedures preserve confidentiality, integrity and availability.
  • Provide security guidance for new projects, product feature releases and infrastructure changes through architecture reviews, threat modeling and security acceptance criteria to integrate security early in the lifecycle.
  • Conduct periodic security awareness initiatives, phishing simulations and user training programs to reduce human risk and promote a security-conscious culture across the organization.
  • Maintain and improve the incident response playbooks, runbooks and automation scripts (SOAR) to increase efficiency of security operations and align with changing threat landscape.
  • Perform log collection, retention and forensic data preservation to support investigations and compliance obligations; collaborate with legal and HR in response to breaches and regulatory reporting.
  • Ensure compliance with regional and industry-specific regulations (e.g., GDPR, HIPAA, PCI-DSS) by implementing controls, managing audit evidence and remediating findings identified during compliance assessments.
  • Collaborate with cross-functional teams (DevOps, Legal, HR, Finance) to integrate security requirements into business processes and digital transformation initiatives, balancing security, usability and time-to-market.
  • Research and evaluate emerging security technologies, threat intelligence feeds and vendor solutions; provide recommendations and proof-of-concept testing to leadership to evolve the security toolset.

Secondary Functions

  • Participate in cross-departmental risk assessments and business impact analyses to quantify potential security exposure and inform prioritization of mitigation efforts.
  • Assist with the creation and maintenance of secure architecture patterns, deployment blueprints and automation templates for cloud and containerized workloads.
  • Support ad-hoc security data requests, build custom detections, and perform exploratory log analysis to validate hypotheses and refine detection logic.
  • Contribute to the organization’s security roadmap, project planning and budgeting by estimating effort for security initiatives and identifying quick wins for risk reduction.
  • Mentor junior analysts and provide on-call support rotation for incident response and critical security escalations as needed.
  • Coordinate tabletop exercises and scenario-based simulations to validate incident readiness, roles & responsibilities, and communication protocols across the business.
  • Help manage security-related change controls and approvals, ensuring security reviews are completed prior to production deployments.
  • Maintain relationships with law enforcement, external incident response vendors and threat intelligence providers for escalated incidents and advanced investigations.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

  • Security operations and incident response: SIEM, SOC workflows, triage and containment.
  • Vulnerability management and remediation: Nessus, Qualys, Rapid7 or similar scanning tools and patch coordination.
  • Endpoint protection and EDR: experience with CrowdStrike, SentinelOne, Microsoft Defender, Carbon Black.
  • Network security: firewalls, IDS/IPS, VPNs, WAFs, network segmentation and secure remote access.
  • Cloud security: hands-on with AWS/Azure/GCP security controls, IAM, CloudTrail, Security Hub, or equivalent.
  • Identity and Access Management (IAM) and Privileged Access Management (PAM) solutions.
  • Scripting and automation: Python, PowerShell, Bash, and experience with SOAR automation and orchestration.
  • Application and web security fundamentals: OWASP Top 10, secure coding practices, static/dynamic analysis tools.
  • Encryption and key management, PKI fundamentals and TLS configuration best practices.
  • Regulatory and compliance knowledge: GDPR, PCI-DSS, HIPAA, SOC2, NIST CSF / SP 800-53, ISO 27001.
  • Digital forensics basics and preservation of evidence for investigations.
  • Familiarity with container and orchestration security (Docker, Kubernetes) and IaC (Terraform, CloudFormation).
  • Threat intelligence and threat-hunting methodologies; familiarity with MITRE ATT&CK framework.
  • Logging and observability tooling: ELK/Elastic, Splunk, Datadog or equivalent.

Soft Skills

  • Strong verbal and written communication; able to explain technical risk to non-technical stakeholders and produce clear incident reports.
  • Analytical thinking and problem-solving; comfortable working with large volumes of telemetry and ambiguous data.
  • Collaboration and teamwork across IT, product and business units; ability to influence without direct authority.
  • Attention to detail and a methodical approach to investigation and documentation.
  • Prioritization and time management skills in high-pressure situations and during incident response.
  • Teaching and mentoring mindset to upskill peers and promote security best practices.
  • Ethical judgment, integrity and discretion when handling sensitive data and breach scenarios.
  • Adaptability and continuous learning orientation to stay current with evolving threats and technologies.
  • Project management basics and the ability to drive security initiatives to completion.
  • Customer-focused service orientation when interacting with internal stakeholders and business partners.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

  • Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Cybersecurity, Information Technology, or related field; or equivalent practical experience.

Preferred Education:

  • Master’s degree in Cybersecurity, Information Assurance, Computer Science or relevant advanced degree.
  • Professional certifications such as CISSP, CISM, CEH, CompTIA Security+, GIAC (GSEC/GCIH) are highly desirable.

Relevant Fields of Study:

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

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range:

  • 3–6 years in IT security, security operations, network security, or related roles; or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Preferred:

  • 5+ years of progressive hands-on experience in security operations, incident response, cloud security and vulnerability management.
  • Demonstrated experience implementing security controls in enterprise, hybrid-cloud or multi-cloud environments and supporting compliance programs.
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