Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Cybersecurity Consultant

🎯 Role Definition

As a Cybersecurity Consultant you will act as a trusted advisor to internal teams and external clients, delivering strategic and technical information security solutions that reduce risk, meet regulatory requirements, and enable secure business transformation. You will combine hands-on technical expertise (penetration testing, incident response, cloud security, SIEM tuning, EDR) with governance and program-level guidance (risk assessments, policies, compliance mapping, security roadmap development). The role requires strong communication and stakeholder management skills to translate technical findings into actionable remediation plans and strategic security initiatives.

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Security Analyst / SOC Analyst
Network Engineer or Systems Engineer with security focus
Application Security Engineer or Junior Penetration Tester

Advancement To:

Senior Cybersecurity Consultant
Security Architect / Cloud Security Architect
Director of Information Security / Head of Security Consulting

Lateral Moves:

Incident Response / Forensics Specialist
Application Security Lead / DevSecOps Engineer

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Lead and execute technical security assessments including internal and external vulnerability assessments, authenticated and unauthenticated scanning, and prioritized remediation plans aligned to CVSS and business impact.
Plan, perform and report on penetration tests (external, internal, web application, API, mobile, network, and cloud) using both automated tools and manual exploitation techniques; deliver executive summaries and remediation roadmaps tailored to technical and business audiences.
Design, deploy and optimize cloud security controls across AWS, Azure and GCP environments, including IaC (Terraform/ARM), secure configuration baselines, identity and access management (IAM) hardening, and cloud-native logging and monitoring.
Lead incident response engagements: triage alerts, coordinate containment and eradication, perform root cause analysis, and produce incident post-mortems with actionable recommendations and playbooks to strengthen detection and prevention capabilities.
Conduct threat modeling and secure design reviews for new applications and infrastructure, applying STRIDE/PASTA methodologies and mapping controls to reduce attack surface and design flaws early in the SDLC.
Implement and tune SIEM, EDR, and logging pipelines (Splunk, Elastic, QRadar, Sentinel) to improve detection coverage, reduce false positives, and document detection rules, playbooks and use cases.
Deliver third-party and supplier security assessments, scorecards and continuous monitoring recommendations to reduce vendor risk and enforce contractually required security controls.
Lead compliance readiness assessments and audits for ISO 27001, NIST CSF/800-53, PCI DSS, SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR; translate control gaps into prioritized remediation projects with owners and timelines.
Develop and drive information security strategy, risk management frameworks, security roadmaps and KPI/metrics to measure program maturity and security posture improvements.
Architect and validate secure network and infrastructure designs (segmentation, firewall rule review, VPN, ZTNA) to prevent lateral movement and reduce blast radius across data centers and cloud networks.
Conduct application security assessments including SAST/DAST reviews, secure code reviews, dependency and supply-chain vulnerability analysis (SBOM), and integrate security gates into CI/CD pipelines.
Provide hands-on configuration, deployment and optimization of endpoint protection, EDR, anti-malware and hardening controls across Windows, macOS and Linux environments.
Lead or participate in red team / purple team exercises to validate detection capabilities, adversary emulation, and to drive measurable improvements in detection, response, and hunting playbooks.
Produce high-quality technical reports, executive briefings and board-level summaries that distill technical risk into business impacts, mitigation options, and cost/benefit tradeoffs.
Mentor and train internal teams and clients through workshops, tabletop exercises and hands-on training sessions for incident response, secure coding practices, and cloud security fundamentals.
Provide pre-sales and solution design support for security services, including scoping assessments, developing statement of work (SOW), and estimating effort and risk for proposed engagements.
Manage remediation projects end-to-end: coordinate cross-functional stakeholders, track progress through ticketing systems, validate fixes, and close out assessment findings with evidence and sign-off.
Conduct digital forensics and evidence collection for investigations when needed, preserving chain of custody and delivering forensic analysis reports that support legal, regulatory or internal investigations.
Design and implement identity and access management (IAM) solutions, least-privilege models, privileged access management (PAM) controls, and automated access review processes.
Evaluate and pilot security tools and automation (SOAR, DAST/SAST, cloud security posture management, container security) and build automation playbooks to reduce manual effort in monitoring and response.
Support business continuity and disaster recovery planning from a security perspective, including backup strategies, secure failover designs, and tabletop exercises that validate recovery objectives.
Perform security due diligence for mergers and acquisitions, assessing cyber risk exposure, integration concerns, and required remediation to meet deal timelines and regulatory expectations.
Maintain current threat intelligence and adversary TTP knowledge, translating this intelligence into detection content, hunting hypotheses and recommendations to harden client environments.
Coordinate cross-functional security governance activities: policy development, control rationalization, risk acceptance processes, and security awareness campaigns targeting end-users and executives.

Secondary Functions

Support business development by contributing to proposals, client presentations, and statement of work (SOW) creation for security engagements.
Mentor junior consultants and security analysts through coaching, technical reviews and knowledge transfer, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
Maintain and update reusable assessment templates, playbooks, and automation scripts to improve delivery consistency and speed across engagements.
Participate in industry forums, conferences and client workshops to represent the firm’s security capabilities and to gather market intelligence.
Assist product and engineering teams to integrate security requirements into product roadmaps and sprint planning through threat modeling and secure design advisories.
Contribute to internal tool development and integrations for vulnerability management, reporting automation, and customer dashboards.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Vulnerability Assessment & Management: strong experience with Nessus, Qualys, OpenVAS, Tenable and remediation lifecycle.
Penetration Testing & Exploitation: skilled with Burp Suite, Metasploit, Nmap, SQLmap, and manual exploitation methodologies for web, API and network tests.
Cloud Security: hands-on expertise securing AWS, Azure and GCP workloads, IAM best practices, cloud logging, KMS, and cloud native security controls.
SIEM, EDR & Threat Detection: experience deploying, tuning and writing correlation rules and hunts in Splunk, Elastic, QRadar, Microsoft Sentinel, CrowdStrike, Carbon Black.
Incident Response & Forensics: endpoint and memory forensics, log analysis, containment strategies, DFIR tools (Volatility, Autopsy, FTK) and playbook development.
Application Security & DevSecOps: SAST/DAST tools (Fortify, Checkmarx, Snyk), secure code review, CI/CD pipeline integration, container and Kubernetes security.
Identity & Access Management (IAM) & PAM: design and implement least privilege models, Okta/Azure AD experience, and privileged access solutions (CyberArk, BeyondTrust).
Security Frameworks & Compliance: depth in ISO 27001, NIST CSF/800-53, PCI DSS, SOC 2, HIPAA, GDPR and gap analysis methodologies.
Scripting & Automation: proficient in Python, PowerShell, Bash for automation, tool integrations and building custom detection or exploitation scripts.
Networking & Cryptography: deep understanding of TCP/IP, routing, firewalls, VPNs, TLS, PKI and encryption best practices for data-in-transit and data-at-rest.
Container & Orchestration Security: Docker and Kubernetes hardening, admission controllers, scanning images and securing CI/CD deployment pipelines.
Threat Modeling & Adversary Emulation: practical use of STRIDE, PASTA or ATT&CK frameworks to identify high-risk attack paths and control recommendations.

Soft Skills

Client-facing communication: ability to present technical findings to executives and non-technical stakeholders with clarity and credibility.
Problem-solving and critical thinking: analyze complex environments, prioritize risks, and recommend pragmatic, cost-effective controls.
Project management and organization: manage multiple concurrent engagements, deadlines, and deliverables with a structured approach.
Team leadership and mentorship: lead small project teams, mentor junior staff, and drive collaborative outcome-focused work.
Report writing and documentation: produce polished technical reports, executive summaries and policy documents suitable for audits and governance.
Stakeholder management: influence cross-functional partners (engineering, legal, compliance, operations) to implement security improvements.
Adaptability and continuous learning: stay current with rapidly evolving threats, tools, and cloud-native technologies and apply learning to client environments.
Negotiation and risk communication: articulate risk tradeoffs to enable informed decision-making and risk acceptance where appropriate.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Cybersecurity, Information Systems, Engineering, or equivalent professional experience.

Preferred Education:

Master's degree in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Information Assurance or related field.
Relevant advanced certifications such as CISSP, CISM, OSCP, CRISC, CCSP, or GIAC (e.g., GXPN, GCIH).

Relevant Fields of Study:

Computer Science
Cybersecurity / Information Security
Information Systems / IT Management
Network Engineering / Computer Engineering
Forensic Computing / Digital Forensics

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3–8 years of progressive cybersecurity experience, with a mix of hands-on technical assessments and program-level advisory work.

Preferred:

5+ years in consulting or client-facing roles with demonstrable experience leading security assessments, incident response engagements, cloud security projects and compliance readiness efforts.
Proven track record delivering high-quality security deliverables for enterprise or large-scale cloud environments and managing remediation programs end-to-end.
Demonstrable certifications (CISSP, OSCP, CEH, CISM, or relevant GIAC) and a portfolio of past assessments, red-team reports or security architecture projects.