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Principal Security Researcher

Microsoft· Security Research
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London, Cheltenham£93.5k - £161.8kFull-timePosted 4d ago

About the role

Senior security researcher on the Global Hunting, Oversight, and Strategic Triage (GHOST) team focusing on threat hunts, investigations, threat intelligence, and development of investigation practices within Microsoft tooling and products.

Responsibilities

  • Leading technical workstreams during investigations and guiding others in conducting deep analyses of attacker activity across on-premises and cloud environments.
  • Identifying potential threats, enabling proactive defense before an incident occurs.
  • Presenting technical findings and recommendations to improve customers’ cybersecurity posture and transferring threat intelligence knowledge to prepare customers to defend against today’s threat landscape.
  • Defining requirements for and assisting in the development of production threat-hunting tools, automations, and new capabilities.
  • Driving investigation strategies, developing new hunting methodologies, and influencing security products and practices across multiple teams.
  • Mentoring others and helping the team strengthen both technical and interpersonal skills.

Qualifications

  • Extensive and demonstrated professional experience in Threat Hunting, Incident Response (DFIR), Threat Intelligence, or Security Research.
  • Experience investigating sophisticated cyber threats, including APT or nation-state activity.
  • Extensive experience working with forensically collected data and associated tooling, security telemetry, logs, and SIEM platforms.
  • Expertise in KQL or equivalent query languages (Splunk, Humio, Kibana, etc.).
  • Experience with EDR and security monitoring technologies such as Microsoft Defender, Microsoft Sentinel, CrowdStrike, or similar platforms.
  • Experience managing or conducting security reviews of Microsoft Azure tenants, Microsoft 365, and Entra ID.
  • Proven ability to analyze security data to investigate attacker activity and identify indicators of compromise (IOCs), indicators of activity (IOAs), and tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs).
  • Experience and familiarity with the collection of digital forensic data, as well as case management and forensic analysis tools such as X-Ways Forensics.
  • Solid written and verbal communication skills in English and the ability to work in a global team environment.
  • Ability to obtain and maintain UK security clearance.

Skills

Required:Threat HuntingIncident Response (DFIR)Threat IntelligenceSecurity Data AnalysisKQL / Query LanguagesEDR / Security MonitoringAzure / M365 / Entra ID ReviewsForensic Tools (X-Ways)

Benefits

  • Find additional benefits and pay information here: https://careers.microsoft.com/v2/global/en/corporate-pay/united-kingdom-corporate-pay.html
Last updated Oct 23, 2026. Interested? Apply on the company site.

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