SOC/Incident Response Engineer

Benesch is proud to announce the opening for a SOC/Incident Report Engineer in our Chicago office! This position is hybrid and has work from home flexibility. Position Summary Are you excited about detecting and resolving cybersecurity threats and incidents? Do you find it a challenge to help an organization reduce threats and enhance their security? Does working with teams to develop strategies to improve detection capabilities? Then you may be interested in our SOC/Incident Report Engineer position. This role is perfect for the individual looking to play a crucial role in Benesch's security initiatives. The SOC/Incident Response Engineer is responsible for detecting, investigating, and responding to cybersecurity incidents across the Firm. This role combines threat detection, digital forensics, malware triage, and cloud security expertise to protect organizational assets, reduce risk, and strengthen security posture. The SOC/Incident Response Engineer will operate within a 24/7 security operations environment, collaborating with cross-functional teams to analyze threats, develop response strategies, and improve detection capabilities. Position Responsibilities Security Monitoring & Threat Detection Monitors SIEM, EDR, NDR, and cloud-native security tools to identify suspicious activity and potential security incidents. Creates, tunes, and optimizes detection rules, correlation logic, and analytic use cases. Conducts threat hunting based on emerging TTPs, threat intel, and anomaly patterns. Maintains and improves alerting fidelity to reduce false positives and enhance detection precision. Incident Response & Triage Performs initial triage of security alerts to assess severity, impact, and required response actions. Leads full incident lifecycle activities including investigation, containment, eradication, recovery, and post‑incident analysis. Coordinates with IT, cloud, and business teams to execute IR playbooks and minimize operational impact. Documents incidents, findings, and lessons learned; contribute to after‑action reviews. Digital Forensics & Malware Analysis Conducts forensic acquisition and analysis of endpoints, servers, cloud resources, and network artifacts (disk, memory, logs). Examines artifacts such as registry hives, event logs, file systems, network captures, browser history, and persistence mechanisms. Performs malware triage (dynamic and static) to determine malware behavior, indicators of compromise, and propagation mechanisms. Mants chain-of-custody processes and ensure forensic data integrity for potential legal or compliance requirements. Cloud Security & IR Monitors and responds to security events within cloud environments (e.g., Azure, AWS, Google Cloud). Investigates cloud-native logs: Azure Activity Logs, AWS CloudTrail, GCP Audit Logs, identity events, network flows, and storage access. Evaluates cloud security posture, identifying misconfigurations, risky access patterns, and drift. Assists in development of cloud detection logic using native tooling (e.g., Azure Sentinel/Microsoft Defender XDR, AWS GuardDuty, GCP SCC). Security Tooling & Automation Maintains and enhances SOC tooling, dashboards, and automation workflows (SOAR). Builds automated playbooks to speed up triage, enrichment, and response. Integrates new data sources and improves log ingestion pipelines for SIEM/EDR. Threat Intelligence & Research Utilizes internal and external threat intelligence to contextualize alerts and strengthen detections. Tracks adversary TTPs based on frameworks such as MITRE ATT&CK. Researches emerging threats, vulnerabilities, and malware families. Collaboration, Compliance & Reporting Partners with governance, engineering, and IT teams to ensure effective remediation and long‑term control improvements. Supports audit, compliance, and regulatory requirements related to incident management. Prepares clear, concise technical and executive‑level reports. Key Competencies Analytical mindset with strong problem‑solving skills. Ability to work under pressure during active incidents. Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Strong attention to detail and a commitment to continuous improvement. Qualifications The SOC/Incident Response (IR) Engineer should have 3–7 years of experience in a Security Operations Center (SOC), incident response, digital forensics, or a closely related cybersecurity discipline. A strong technical foundation in networking, operating system internals across Windows, Linux, and macOS, identity systems, and modern cloud architectures is essential. The role requires hands‑on experience with leading security technologies, including SIEM platforms such as Microsoft Sentinel or Splunk, endpoint detection and response (EDR) and antivirus tools like Microsoft Defender for Endpoint or CrowdStrike, and forensic toolsets including Velociraptor, Autopsy, FTK, and KAPE. Experience utilizing malware analysis sandboxes and static analysis frameworks, as well as cloud security tools such as Azure Defender, AWS GuardDuty, and Google Cloud Security Command Center (SCC), is also required. Familiarity with scripting and automation languages, particularly Python, PowerShell, and KQL, is highly desirable. Preferred certifications include GIAC GCIA, GCFA, GCIH, or GNFA; AWS Security Specialty or Google Professional Cloud Security Engineer; and industry‑recognized credentials such as CISSP, CEH, or CySA+ (or their equivalents). The salary range for this position is $112K to $139K. Please note that quoted salary ranges are based on Benesch's good faith belief at the time of the job posting and are not a guarantee of what final salary offers may be. Base pay is based on market location and may vary depending on job‑related knowledge, skills, and experience. Base pay is only one part of the Total Rewards that Benesch provides to compensate and recognize our staff professionals for their work. Full‑time positions are eligible for a discretionary bonus and a comprehensive benefits package. Benesch is an equal opportunity employer. We strongly value and encourage diversity and solicit applications from all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, gender, sex, age, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, marital status, sexual orientation, physical or mental disability (where applicant is qualified to perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodations), medical condition, protected veteran status, gender identity, genetic information, or any other characteristic protected by federal, state, or local law. Applicants who are interested in applying for a position and require special assistance or an accommodation during the process due to a disability should contact the Benesch Human Resources Department by phone at View phone number on click.appcast.io or email Christine Watson at View email address on click.appcast.io. Equal Opportunity Employer/Protected Veterans/Individuals with Disabilities #J-18808-Ljbffr Benesch