Junior Cybersecurity Scientist

The Junior Cybersecurity Scientist will support offensive security and threat emulation efforts by reverse-engineering hardware and software systems, identifying vulnerabilities, and developing proof-of-concept exploits. The role involves applying realistic penetration testing techniques across diverse attack surfaces, analyzing and modeling adversary threats, and building tools to enable reverse engineering and automated vulnerability discovery. Interns will work closely with a multidisciplinary team to debug complex systems, document findings, and communicate technical insights that strengthen overall security posture. Responsibilities

• Reverse-engineer hardware and/or software systems and develop proof-of-concept capabilities exploiting their vulnerabilities
• Apply realistic penetration testing techniques toward a variety of targets
• Analyze and model threats based on various attack surfaces
• Build tools and capabilities to facilitate reverse engineering or automated vulnerability discovery.
• Collaborate in a team environment to reverse engineer, debug, analyze and report findings., * Experience with binary reverse engineering tools
• Binwalk
• Ghidra, IDA Pro, Radare2 etc.
• Embedded systems development & debugging
• JTAG/UART debugging Global Comp 0000000000000000000 This represents the typical compensation range for this position based on experience, location and other factors. Closing Statement Riverside Research Institute is a not-for-profit, technology-oriented defense company, where service to our customers and support of our staff is our overall mission. Riverside is an affirmative action-equal opportunity employer and complies with all applicable federal, state, and local laws regarding recruitment and hiring. Riverside offers comprehensive compensation and benefit packages to our employees. Riverside bases its employment decisions solely on technical experience, qualifications and other job-related criteria related to our organizational purpose as a not-for-profit company, and without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex marital status, sexual orientation, national origin, physical or mental disability, veteran’s status or any other status legally protected by applicable federal, state, and local law. Riverside Research is an equal opportunity employer. We recruit, employ, train, compensate, and promote without regard to race, religion, creed, color, national origin, age, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, disability, veteran status, or any other basis protected by applicable federal, state and local law.

• Bachelors degree in a relevant field and two years of experience.
• Competent use of a Linux Environment
• High-level scripting languages, such as Python
• Low-level languages, such as Rust, C, or Assembly
• GDB or another debugger
• Foundational knowledge of exploit development
• Buffer overflows, use-after-free, ROP, etc.
• Computing architecture design, instruction set architectures, and operating system internals
• Memory management(virtual memory, heap/stack)
• Kernel Programming / System Calls

Riverside Research is an independent National Security Nonprofit dedicated to research and development in the national interest. We provide high-end technical services, research and development, and prototype solutions to some of the country’s most challenging technical problems.