Group 59--Summer Research Program (Cyber System Assessments)

About the Cyber System Assessment Group:

The Cyber System Assessments Group performs software and hardware reverse engineering, vulnerability research and discovery, and system exploitation. We develop and prototype cutting-edge capabilities for our operational partners in the U.S. government. We look for, find, and demonstrate cyber vulnerabilities so that vulnerabilities in U.S. systems can be corrected, and so that vulnerabilities in other systems are better understood.  Top U.S. Government leadership relies on us for our expert guidance, and our technical role with our U.S. Government sponsors is considered essential to the success of their missions.

Position Description:

Cyber System Exploitation Intern

When you join our team as a Cyber System Exploitation Intern, you'll be contributing to the development of cybersecurity tools and techniques.  You'll be performing reverse engineering and exploiting software and hardware systems important to the U.S government operations and critical to the defense of our nation.  Your main areas of research will include cyber tool prototyping and technical analysis of offensive or defensive cyber tools and systems, automated vulnerability discovery, reverse engineering, software protection mechanisms, static analysis, and dynamic instrumentation. Once you’re on our team, you will communicate your research to non-domain experts through your writing, public presentations, and hands-on training sessions.

Requirements:

Computer Science, Computer Engineering, or related coursework in at least two of the following topic areas: Operating Systems, Distributed Systems, Programming Languages, Mathematics or Algorithms. Candidate should also have proficiency in Python and C/C++ programming, or similar languages.

The successful candidate must be an existing or rising college student in Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Math, Physics, or related program. Preference will be given to rising seniors.

Desired Technical Skills (Some use, including in classwork, of many of these technologies):

• Version Control Systems (Git)
• Dissassemblers/Decompilers (Ghidra, IDAPro)
• Debuggers (WinDbg, GDB)
• Programming Languages (C/C++, Python)
• Infrastructure/Container Provisioning/Orchestration Systems (Ansible, Kubernetes, Docker)
• Network Protocol Analysis (Wireshark, Tcpdump)
• Emulator/Virtualization Technologies (VMWare, QEMU)
• Operating System Internals
• Reverse Engineering of Embedded Systems Firmware, Malicious Code, Mobile Applications, and More + Vulnerability Assessment
• Statistics and Metrics
• SAT/SMT Solvers
• Symbolic Execution
• Data-flow Analysis for Compiled Binaries
• Binary Intermediate Representations
• Binary Translation
• Compiler Construction
• Anti-debugging/Anti-instrumentation Techniques
• Network and Host Security Products
• Vulnerability Assessment

Selected candidate will be subject to a pre-employment background investigation and must be able to obtain and maintain a Secret level DoD security clearance.

MIT Lincoln Laboratory is an Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment and will not be discriminated against on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, veteran status, disability status, or genetic information; U.S. citizenship is required

Requisition ID: 41326