Incident Response Engineer - PhishGuard

Job description

<div class="content-intro"><div><strong>About Us</strong></div> <div> <p>At Cloudflare, we are on a mission to help build a better Internet. Today the company runs one of the world’s largest networks that powers millions of websites and other Internet properties for customers ranging from individual bloggers to SMBs to Fortune 500 companies. Cloudflare protects and accelerates any Internet application online without adding hardware, installing software, or changing a line of code. Internet properties powered by Cloudflare all have web traffic routed through its intelligent global network, which gets smarter with every request. As a result, they see significant improvement in performance and a decrease in spam and other attacks. Cloudflare was named to Entrepreneur Magazine’s Top Company Cultures list and ranked among the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company.&nbsp;</p> <p>At Cloudflare, we’re not looking for people who wait for a polished roadmap; we’re looking for the builders who see the cracks in the Internet that everyone else has simply learned to live with. We value candidates who have the instinct to spot a "normalized" problem and the AI-native curiosity to create a solution using the latest tools. Our culture is built on iteration, leveraging AI to ship faster today to make it better tomorrow, while ensuring that every improvement, no matter how small, is shared across the team to lift everyone up. If you’re the type of person who values curiosity over bureaucracy, and that AI is a partner in solving tough problems to keep the Internet moving forward, you’ll fit right in.</p> </div></div><h1><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Response Engineer - PhishGuard&nbsp;</span></h1> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Location: Bengaluru</span></p> <h2><span style="font-size: 12pt;">About the Department</span></h2> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Cloudforce One is Cloudflare's threat operations and research team, responsible for identifying and disrupting cyber threats ranging from sophisticated cyber criminal activity to nation-state sponsored advanced persistent threats (APTs). Cloudforce One works in close partnership with external organizations and internal Cloudflare teams, continuously developing operational tradecraft and expanding ever-growing sources of threat intelligence to enable expedited threat hunting and remediation.</span></p> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Members of Cloudforce One are at the helm of leveraging an incredibly vast and varied set of data points that only one of the world's largest global networks can provide. The team analyzes these unique data points at massive scale and efficiency, synthesizing findings into actionable threat intelligence to better protect our customers.</span></p> <h2><span style="font-size: 12pt;">About INTERDICT</span></h2> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I.N.T.E.R.D.I.C.T. (Identify, Neutralize, Triage, Engage, Respond, Disrupt, Integrate, Contain, Threat Hunting) is Cloudforce One's unified operational security organization responsible for identifying, analyzing, and responding to threats targeting Cloudflare and its customers. INTERDICT encompasses three main sub-functions:</span></p> <ul> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">PhishGuard: Managed email threat detection and response service</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Cloudflare Managed Defense (CMD): Network and application security monitoring for 'Under Attack' mitigation support.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Detection Engineering: ML model development and detection optimization</span></li> </ul> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Together, INTERDICT provides comprehensive 24×7×365 protection across email, application, and network threat surfaces.</span></p> <h3><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Role Summary</span></h3> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As a Response Engineer for PhishGuard, you will serve as the essential human intelligence layer responsible for identifying, tracking, and defeating sophisticated email-borne cyber threats like Business Email Compromise (BEC) and vendor fraud. You will operate within the INTERDICT organization, collaborating closely with internal teams like Detection Engineering, PREDICT (Threat Intelligence), and SIRT to hunt down adversaries and refine global security models. Our ideal candidate possesses deep forensic thoroughness, exceptional nuance detection, and a growth-minded curiosity to protect global organizations using one of the world's largest networks.</span></p> <h3><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Role Responsibilities</span></h3> <ul> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Conduct continuous, real-time monitoring of email threat queues to review and analyze sophisticated attacks flagged by Cloudflare Email Security automated systems.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Investigate customer-reported submissions, execute proactive threat hunts targeting emerging patterns, and perform manual retraction or quarantine of verified malicious emails.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Provide critical feedback to Detection Engineering to update machine learning models and contribute novel campaign data to global intelligence repositories.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Identify nuanced threat patterns by correlating technical telemetry with behavioral indicators, generating detailed threat dossiers for impending organizational risks.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Deliver direct crisis intervention and proactive phone notifications to customers regarding high-dollar BEC threats and active insider risks.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Lead technical onboarding sessions for new customers, configuring internal system instances with bespoke detection rules, thresholds, and custom allow/block lists.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Guide customers through their multi-year DMARC implementation journey toward strict "Reject" policy enforcement by conducting SPF and DKIM alignment audits.</span></li> </ul> <h3><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Role Requirements (Must-Have Skills)</span></h3> <ul> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Information Security, Information Systems, or equivalent practical experience.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">5+ years of experience tracking and analyzing complex cyber campaigns utilizing technical indicators such as Domains, IP Addresses, and email headers.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Proven expertise analyzing, investigating, and defending against highly targeted phishing, invoice fraud, and Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Deep working knowledge of core email authentication protocols (SPF, DKIM, DMARC) and aggregate/forensic data interpretation.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Hands-on experience utilizing AI LLM tools (such as OpenCode or Windsurf) to develop automations for daily analysis and productivity workflows.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Excellent verbal and written English communication skills, with a strong ability to translate complex technical threats into actionable business intelligence for executive stakeholders.</span></li> </ul> <h3><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Nice-to-Have Skills</span></h3> <ul> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Relevant industry certifications such as GCIH, GCIA, CEH, Security+, or equivalent.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Technical familiarity with regular expressions, YARA rules, SQL query formulation, and malicious file format analysis (e.g., Microsoft Office Documents, Adobe PDFs).</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Prior experience working within managed security services (MSSP) or customer-facing security consulting environments.</span></li> <li style="font-size: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Familiarity with the broader Cloudflare ecosystem, including Cloudflare Email Security, WAF, and Zero Trust architectures.</span></li> </ul><div class="content-conclusion"><p><strong>What Makes Cloudflare Special?</strong></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We’re not just a highly ambitious, large-scale technology company. We’re a highly ambitious, large-scale technology company with a soul. Fundamental to our mission to help build a better Internet is protecting the free and open Internet.</span></p> <p><a href="https://blog.cloudflare.com/protecting-free-expression-online/"><strong>Project Galileo</strong></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">: Since 2014, we've equipped more than 2,400 journalism and civil society organizations in 111 countries with powerful tools to defend themselves against attacks that would otherwise censor their work, technology already used by Cloudflare’s enterprise customers--at no cost.</span></p> <p><strong><a href="https://www.cloudflare.com/athenian/">Athenian Project</a></strong><span style="font-weight: 400;">: In 2017, we created the Athenian Project to ensure that state and local governments have the highest level of protection and reliability for free, so that their constituents have access to election information and voter registration. Since the project, we've provided services to more than 425 local government election websites in 33 states.</span></p> <p><a href="https://1.1.1.1/"><strong>1.1.1.1</strong></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">: We released</span><a href="https://1.