Lead Security Analyst (Digital Forensics and Incident Response)
Gartner · Irving, Texas, United States · hybrid
Hiring near our Irving, TX and Stamford, CT Centers of Excellence with a flexible environment.
About Gartner IT:
Join a world-class team of skilled engineers who build creative digital solutions to support our colleagues and clients. We make a broad organizational impact by delivering cutting-edge technology solutions that power Gartner. Gartner IT values its culture of nonstop innovation, an outcome-driven approach to success, and the notion that great ideas can come from anyone on the team.
About the Role
This is a new role within Gartner's Security Operations team, focused on Digital Forensics and Incident Response (DFIR). As a Lead Analyst, you will be responsible for leading complex investigations, conducting forensic analysis across enterprise systems, and helping Gartner respond to, contain, and recover from cybersecurity incidents.
You will serve as a technical leader for investigations involving advanced threats, insider risk, legal and regulatory matters, and high-priority security events. This role requires deep expertise in digital forensics, evidence handling, incident response, and threat analysis, combined with the ability to communicate findings clearly to technical and non-technical audiences.
As part of a highly collaborative team, you will work closely with teams such as Security Operations, Threat Intelligence, Legal, Human Resources, Privacy, Compliance and Engineering to protect Gartner's people, data and intellectual property.
What You Will Do
- Lead digital forensic investigations involving cybersecurity incidents, insider threats, human resources matters, legal requests, and regulatory inquiries.
- Conduct forensic acquisition and analysis of endpoints, cloud workloads, network artifacts, log data, and volatile system evidence.
- Develop and maintain DFIR playbooks and standard operating procedures that meet legal and evidentiary standards.
- Perform advanced log analysis using multiple data sources to establish timelines, identify root cause, and validate investigative findings.
- Develop automation and tooling that improve investigative efficiency and evidence collection capabilities.
- Identify opportunities to improve Gartner's detection, response, forensic readiness, and evidence preservation capabilities.
- Mentor junior investigators and contribute to the growth and maturity of Gartner's DFIR program.
- Produce clear and defensible forensic reports suitable for internal stakeholders, auditors, legal counsel, and executive leadership.
What You Will Need
- Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Digital Forensics, related fields, or equivalent practical experience.
- 7+ years of experience in digital forensics and incident response, with at least 2 years in a senior or lead capacity, including experience leading complex incident response investigations.
- Experience using Python, PowerShell or other similar scripting languages to automate and accelerate forensic workflows and evidence processing.
- Hands on experience with digital forensics tools and platforms, including (but not limited to): Magnet Forensics, EnCase, Volatility, MemProcFS, FTK, KAPE, UAC, Autopsy/Sleuth Kit, Velociraptor or equivalent platforms.
- Experience with cloud forensics in AWS and Azure environments, including investigations involving cloud-native services and Kubernetes/containerized workloads.
- Strong hands-on experience in Windows, macOS, Linux, and memory forensics.
- Strong proficiency with endpoint detection and response (EDR/XDR), SIEM and SOAR platforms (Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, Athena, etc.), network forensics (Zscaler, ExtraHop, Wireshark), and log analysis.
- Experience performing malware analysis, reverse engineering, and threat hunting.
- Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to produce clear forensic reports as well as explain technical concepts to non-technical stakeholders
- Experience running insider threat or HR/Legal driven investigations
- Strong command of evidence handling, chain of custody, and forensically sound acquisition, including live response and remote collection.
Who You Are
- Calm and decisive under pressure, with the ability to manage multiple priorities simultaneously.
- A skilled investigator who can connect disparate data points and develop evidence-based conclusions.
- A strong analytical thinker with exceptional attention to detail and a passion for problem-solving.
- An excellent communicator capable of translating technical findings into business-relevant risk and actionable recommendations for leadership.
- Driven to identify process gaps, improve workflows, and strengthen organizational response capabilities.
- A collaborative partner who works effectively across technical, business, legal and executive teams.
- Committed to continuous learning and staying current with evolving threats, tools, and investigative techniques.
What Will Make You Stand Out
- Relevant industry certifications such as GCFA, GCFE, GNFA, GCIH, GREM, EnCE, or equivalent
- Experience supporting legal, eDiscovery, compliance, privacy, or regulatory investigations.
- Experience leveraging AI/LLMs to enhance DFIR investigations to improve investigative efficiency while preserving evidentiary standards
- Familiarity with investigations involving AI-related security incidents or emerging technology risks.
- Experience building custom forensic utilities, maintaining research projects, contributing to open-source tools, or publishing technical content.
- Advanced experience integrating forensic, SIEM, EDR, and cloud security platforms through APIs and automation.
Don’t meet every single requirement? We encourage you to apply anyway. You might just be the right candidate for this, or other roles!
What you will get:
- Competitive compensation.
- Limitless growth and learning opportunities.
- Ongoing mentorship and apprenticeship; Leadership courses, development programs, technical courses, certification opportunities and more!
- A collaborative and positive culture - join a diverse team of professionals that are as smart and driven as you.
- A chance to make an impact – your work will contribute directly to our strategy.
- Enjoy the flexibility of working from home and the energy of collaborating with peers in our dynamic offices.
- 20+ PTO days plus holidays and floating holidays in your first year.
- Extensive medical, dental insurance and vision plan.
- 401K with corporate match, immediate vesting.
- Health-and-wellness-related allowance programs.
- Parental leave.
- Tuition reimbursement.
- Employee Stock Purchase Plan.
- Employee Assistance Program.
- Gartner Gives Charity Match.
And much more!
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Who are we?
At Gartner, Inc. (NYSE:IT), we guide the leaders who shape the world.
Our mission relies on expert analysis and bold ideas to deliver actionable, objective business and technology insights, helping enterprise leaders and their teams succeed with their mission-critical priorities.
Since our founding in 1979, we’ve grown to 20,000 associates globally who support over 13,000 client enterprises in ~90 countries and territories. We do important, interesting and substantive work that matters. That’s why we hire associates with the intellectual curiosity, energy and drive to want to make a difference. The bar is unapologetically high. So is the impact you can have here.
What makes Gartner a great place to work?
Our vast, virtually untapped market potential offers limitless opportunities – opportunities that may not even exist right now – for you to grow professionally and flourish personally. How far you go is driven by your passion and performance.
We hire remarkable people who collaborate and win as a team. Together, our singular, unifying goal is to deliver results for our clients.
Our teams are inclusive and composed of individuals from different geographies, cultures, religions, ethnicities, races, genders, sexua