Lead Security Researcher - AI Threat Intelligence

Cato Networks is the converged network and security cloud for the AI era.

As AI reshapes cybersecurity, enterprises face a dual challenge: unlocking AI’s potential while defending against AI-driven attacks. Cato addresses both through a unified, cloud-native platform, providing the visibility and context to prioritize risks and stop threats in real time across users, applications, data, and AI agents.

Join us as we scale: take on ambitious technological challenges and shape the next generation of enterprise security at a company trusted by thousands of organizations worldwide.

Cato Networks is looking for a Lead Security Researcher - AI Threat Intelligence. This key position within the threat intelligence group will be in charge of analyzing the vast amount of data that is managed by Cato Networks, develop threat intelligence on adversarial TTPs (tactics, techniques and procedures) and generate reports, presentations and blogs on anomalies and tools identified.

This role goes beyond the analyst role, as a key member of the team the threat intelligence researcher will work with internal security teams, network data, underground intelligence teams and much more, performing cutting edge research followed by presenting the research externally via various mediums.

Responsibilities

• Lead threat intelligence research focused on AI-related threats, threat actors, attack techniques, and emerging cybersecurity trends
• Analyze internal and external security data to identify attack patterns, campaigns, and actionable intelligence
• Explore large-scale datasets using SQL and other data analysis methods to generate research insights
• Build tools, workflows, and agentic systems to automate research, investigation, and intelligence production
• Research how attackers use AI and how AI can improve threat detection, investigation, and response
• Publish high-quality research, including blogs, reports, threat intelligence summaries, and customer-facing insights
• Present research at cybersecurity conferences, webinars, company events, and customer-facing sessions
• Collaborate with product, data, engineering, and research teams to improve detections and product intelligence
• Independently lead research initiatives from idea and data exploration to publication and presentation.
• Travel internationally for company events and cybersecurity conferences at least six times per year.

Requirements

• At least 5 years of hands-on experience in cybersecurity, threat intelligence, security research, or security analysis
• Strong understanding of the cybersecurity threat landscape, including threat actors, malware, phishing, C&C, exploitation, cloud threats, and attacker behavior
• Proven experience in threat intelligence research, including IOCs, TTPs, MITRE ATT&CK, campaign tracking, and threat actor profiling
• Strong data exploration skills, with practical experience using SQL to analyze large-scale security datasets
• Experience using AI tools, AI coding assistants, and agentic workflows for research, automation, and data analysis
• Ability to build scripts, internal tools, or agentic systems to support threat research and intelligence workflows
• Strong technical writing skills, with experience publishing blogs, reports, whitepapers, or public research
• Strong presentation skills, with the ability to represent the company at conferences and external events
• Self-learner with high curiosity, strong ownership, and the ability to manage complex research independently
• Ability to collaborate effectively with cross-functional teams, including product, engineering, and data teams
• Fluent English with excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Willingness to travel abroad for conferences, customer events, and company events at least six times per year

Advantageous

• Experience researching AI threats, LLM abuse, AI-assisted attacks, or AI-powered detection
• Experience building agentic systems, automation frameworks, or AI-based research workflows
• Background in engineering, backend systems, data infrastructure, or security platform development
• Experience with data warehouses, BI tools, notebooks, or large-scale telemetry analysis
• Experience with XDR, MDR, SIEM, EDR, NDR, SASE, or cloud security products