Key Responsibilities and Required Skills for Cybersecurity Specialist

🎯 Role Definition

A Cybersecurity Specialist is responsible for protecting an organization's information assets and infrastructure by identifying vulnerabilities, detecting and responding to threats, and implementing security controls across on-premises, cloud and hybrid environments. This role blends technical hands-on security engineering, threat hunting, incident response, and compliance support to reduce risk and ensure business continuity. The Cybersecurity Specialist works closely with IT, DevOps, legal, and business stakeholders to design secure solutions, drive remediation, and maintain compliance with industry standards (NIST, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS, GDPR).

📈 Career Progression

Typical Career Path

Entry Point From:

Security Analyst
Network or Systems Administrator
DevOps / Cloud Engineer

Advancement To:

Senior Cybersecurity Specialist / Security Engineer
SOC Manager / Incident Response Lead
Security Architect
Cybersecurity Manager / Head of Information Security

Lateral Moves:

Cloud Security Engineer
Compliance or Risk Analyst
Penetration Tester / Red Team Specialist

Core Responsibilities

Primary Functions

Lead proactive vulnerability management by conducting scheduled and ad-hoc vulnerability scans, analyzing scan results, prioritizing findings based on business impact and threat context, and coordinating remediation with system owners until closure.
Operate and tune Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platforms (e.g., Splunk, QRadar, Azure Sentinel) to detect suspicious activities, develop correlation rules, fine-tune alerts, and reduce false positives while documenting detection logic.
Execute incident response playbooks: triage security alerts, investigate incidents end-to-end, contain and eradicate threats, perform root cause analysis, and drive lessons-learned and remediation tracking with stakeholders.
Conduct threat hunting activities using telemetry from endpoints, network devices, cloud logs and applications; create hypotheses, perform queries, and escalate confirmed threats to incident response workflows.
Maintain and improve endpoint detection and response (EDR) tooling (e.g., CrowdStrike, Carbon Black, Microsoft Defender), develop custom detection rules, and orchestrate automated containment where appropriate.
Perform risk assessments and threat modeling for new applications, cloud migrations, and infrastructure changes; provide concrete security design recommendations to engineers and product teams to reduce attack surface.
Implement and manage identity and access management controls: design least-privilege access models, configure multi-factor authentication (MFA), manage privileged access workstations and review privileged account activity.
Manage vulnerability disclosure and penetration test remediation processes: coordinate with third parties, interpret findings, prioritize fixes, and track remediation to closure while verifying effectiveness of fixes.
Harden infrastructure and platforms by applying secure configuration benchmarks (CIS, Center for Internet Security, vendor baselines), automating configuration management, and validating compliance via continuous monitoring.
Design, deploy, and maintain cloud-native security controls across AWS, Azure and/or GCP: secure IAM policies, network micro-segmentation, logging and monitoring, cloud workload protections and infrastructure-as-code security checks.
Create, update and enforce security policies, standards and procedures aligned to frameworks (NIST CSF, ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI-DSS); communicate policy changes and provide training to technical teams.
Integrate security into the software development lifecycle (DevSecOps): perform code and dependency scanning, implement automated security testing in CI/CD pipelines, and work with developers to remediate flaws early.
Monitor third-party risk by evaluating vendor security posture, conducting security questionnaires/assessments, and supporting contractual security requirements and audits.
Lead phishing simulations and user awareness campaigns; analyze simulation results, track improvements, and provide targeted training to reduce human-related risk.
Configure and maintain network security controls such as firewalls, IDS/IPS, web application firewalls (WAF), and VPNs; perform rule reviews and network segmentation to minimize lateral movement.
Build and maintain security dashboards and executive reports that quantify risk, compliance status, incident trends, and remediation progress for technical and business audiences.
Support forensic investigations by collecting and preserving digital evidence, performing timeline analysis, and collaborating with legal and HR where investigations require formal action.
Participate in disaster recovery and business continuity testing, validating backup security, recovery procedures, and restoring critical services securely after simulated outages or incidents.
Collaborate with legal and privacy teams to ensure technical controls support data protection requirements (GDPR, CCPA) and to respond to regulatory inquiries or breach notifications.
Evaluate, recommend and manage security tools and vendor relationships: run proof-of-concepts, estimate costs, integrate tooling, and measure operational effectiveness against defined KPIs.
Drive continuous improvement by documenting playbooks, runbooks, and standard operating procedures (SOPs); mentor junior staff and contribute to a measurable security maturity roadmap.
Research emerging threats, vulnerabilities and attacker techniques; translate threat intelligence into actionable detections, controls and prioritized mitigation actions across the environment.

Secondary Functions

Support ad-hoc security data requests, develop analytic queries on logs and telemetry, and deliver insights to engineering and product teams.
Contribute to the organization's security strategy and roadmap by identifying gaps, recommending initiatives, and estimating effort and ROI.
Collaborate with business units to translate compliance and security requirements into technical specifications and engineering tickets.
Participate in sprint planning and agile ceremonies to integrate security tasks into development backlogs and ensure timely remediation.
Provide on-call incident response support and participate in a rotating security incident duty roster.
Assist with internal and external security audits by preparing artifacts, responding to auditor questions, and implementing audit remediation items.
Facilitate tabletop exercises and cross-functional incident simulations to validate readiness and improve cross-team coordination.
Maintain an inventory of critical assets, data flows and security controls to support risk analysis and compliance reporting.

Required Skills & Competencies

Hard Skills (Technical)

Vulnerability assessment and management (Nessus, Qualys, Rapid7) — scanning, prioritization and remediation tracking.
SIEM administration and use for detection engineering (Splunk, QRadar, Elastic SIEM, Azure Sentinel).
Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR) tools configuration and threat hunting (CrowdStrike, Carbon Black, Defender).
Incident response and digital forensics: triage, containment, evidence preservation and root-cause analysis.
Cloud security for AWS/Azure/GCP: IAM hardening, logging (CloudTrail, Azure Monitor), security groups, and cloud-native protections.
Network security controls: firewalls, IDS/IPS, WAF, VPNs, micro-segmentation and network traffic analysis.
Identity and access management (IAM) fundamentals and privileged access management (PAM) solutions.
Secure configuration and hardening standards: CIS benchmarks, STIGs, and infrastructure as code scanning.
DevSecOps practices: integrating SAST/DAST, dependency scanning, and automated security testing in CI/CD (GitHub Actions, Jenkins).
Threat intelligence ingestion and use to create detections and inform response.
Scripting and automation (Python, PowerShell, Bash) for log parsing, alert automation and remediation workflows.
Security frameworks and compliance: NIST CSF, ISO 27001, SOC 2, PCI-DSS, GDPR.
Penetration testing basics and collaboration with red team exercises; interpreting pentest reports to drive fixes.
Log management, telemetry collection, and dashboarding for security metrics and KPIs.

Soft Skills

Strong analytical and investigative mindset for complex incident analysis and root-cause investigations.
Clear verbal and written communication to explain technical risk to non-technical stakeholders and produce executive-level reports.
Collaboration and stakeholder management skills to work effectively across IT, DevOps, Legal, and business teams.
Prioritization and time management to handle concurrent incidents, projects and continuous improvement workstreams.
Attention to detail and process-orientation for documentation, change control and audit readiness.
Adaptability and continuous learning mindset to stay current with rapidly evolving threats, tools, and best practices.
Leadership and mentoring ability to coach junior security engineers and foster a security-aware culture.
Ethical judgment and discretion when handling sensitive security incidents and confidential data.
Problem solving and crisis management to lead incident response under pressure.
Customer-service orientation to support internal teams while enforcing security requirements.

Education & Experience

Educational Background

Minimum Education:

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

Preferred Education:

Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Cybersecurity, Computer Science, Information Security, or related field.
Additional security-focused coursework, bootcamps or continuous professional education.

Relevant Fields of Study:

Cybersecurity / Information Security
Computer Science / Software Engineering
Network Engineering / Systems Administration
Information Systems / IT Risk & Governance

Experience Requirements

Typical Experience Range: 3 - 7 years of hands-on cybersecurity, SOC, or systems/network security experience.

Preferred:

Demonstrated experience in incident response, vulnerability management, SIEM operations, or cloud security at mid-sized to large enterprises.
Proven track record of driving remediation and implementing security controls across complex environments.
Prior experience supporting compliance audits (SOC 2, ISO 27001, PCI-DSS) and regulatory requirements (GDPR, CCPA).

Certifications (Highly Desirable)

CISSP, CISM, or equivalent for governance and risk experience.
GIAC certifications (GCIH, GCIA, GPEN) or vendor certifications for hands-on roles.
CompTIA Security+, CEH, or Cloud-specific certs (AWS Security Specialty, Azure Security Engineer).
Splunk, Palo Alto, or other vendor certs aligned to toolchain experience.