Cyber Defense Specialist

About SAP

At SAP, we keep it simple: you bring your best to us, and we'll bring out the best in you. We're builders touching over 20 industries and 80% of global commerce, and we need your unique talents to help shape what's next. The work is challenging – but it matters. You'll find a place where you can be yourself, prioritize your wellbeing, and truly belong. What's in for you? Constant learning, skill growth, great benefits, and a team that wants you to grow and succeed.

What You'll Build

Our Global Cyber Security Incident Response and Recovery Investigators are our first line of response for security events and incidents with a global scope. They are responsible for triaging security alerts detected by Enterprise Detection and SIEM, analyzing available data to determine scope, severity, and priority to determine follow-on actions. In escalation cases, they then work in a supportive capacity to further validate if a cyber-attack is occurring, scoping the extent of a suspected attack, coordinating efforts to contain attacks, supporting forensic investigations to determine the details around an attack, and providing guidance on remediation actions.

In This Role, You Will

• Conduct initial assessments and help drive root cause analysis.
• Contribute to the development of attack remediation and response strategies.
• Coordinate escalation handling and communication across teams.
• Triage operational security processes, including phishing response.
• Assist in maintaining and improving incident handling documentation—such as playbooks, runbooks, and standard operating procedures.
• Collaborate with Detection and SIEM teams to enhance detection logic and alert accuracy.
• Support forensic investigations with technical insights and evidence collection.
• Analyzing cloud logs and telemetry for signs of compromise (e.g., CloudTrail, VPC Flow Logs, Azure Activity Logs).
• Leverage your offensive knowledge to identify gaps, simulate attacks, and drive improvements in detection, response, and hardening strategies.
• We value hands-on practitioners—our environment includes sandboxing, red vs. blue testing, or adversary emulation frameworks (e.g., MITRE ATT&CK, CALDERA, Atomic Red Team) and opportunities to build tooling or simulate attack chains.

What You Bring

We are seeking analytical and detail-oriented critical thinkers who are solution-focused and thrive in dynamic environments. The ideal candidate should be a fast learner with the ability to adapt quickly and respond effectively to changing circumstances.

Preferred Technical Skills And Experience

• Experience of 8–14+ years in a cyber incident investigation role or equivalent combination of education, certifications, and relevant training.
• Certifications - Industry-recognized certifications such as Security+, GCIA, GCIH, GCFA, GCFE, GREM, CISSP (or equivalent).
• Strong understanding of Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actors, their tools, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), as well as threat modeling frameworks.
• Proficiency in TCP/IP communications and knowledge of core network protocols and applications such as DNS, HTTP, and SMB.
• Security Infrastructure Tools: (SIEM, IDS, EDR, DNS, other Deception technologies)
• Proficiency in scripting languages such as PowerShell, Python, or Bash.
• Core Forensic Competencies: Expertise in memory, disk, and file system forensics across multiple OS platforms (Windows, Linux, macOS).
• Experience performing volatile memory acquisition and analysis (e.g., using Volatility, Plaso, Sleuth Kit, Velociraptor, KAPE).
• Proficient in analyzing logs, timelines, and system artifacts to reconstruct attacker activity.
• Proficiency in forensic toolsets such as EnCase, FTK, X-Ways, Autopsy/other.
• Knowledge of file carving, metadata analysis, and data recovery.
• Cloud Forensics & Logging: Experience analyzing cloud logs (e.g., CloudTrail, Azure Activity Logs, GCP Audit Logs).
• Familiarity with cloud storage and compute forensics (e.g., EC2, Lambda, S3, Blob Storage).
• Ability to investigate container and orchestration layers (e.g., Docker, Kubernetes, EKS/AKS/GKE).

Where You Belong

An SAP Global Cyber Senior Incident Response and Recovery Investigator plays a critical role in safeguarding SAP’s digital enterprise. As a front-line defender, the Investigator is responsible for triaging security events identified by monitoring tools, analyzing data to assess severity and urgency, and conducting initial evaluations to determine whether a cyberattack is underway. When a potential incident is identified, the Investigator works closely with Global Security Operations to scope the impact, coordinate containment efforts, and support forensic investigations to uncover the nature and details of the attack.

Key skills/competency

• Cyber Incident Response
• Digital Forensics
• SIEM Management
• Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR)
• Cloud Security
• Threat Intelligence
• Scripting (Python, PowerShell)
• Network Protocols
• APT Analysis
• MITRE ATT&CK Framework