Operational Cooperation Technical Officer Position

CERT-EU is the Computer Emergency Response Team for the Institutions, Bodies and Agencies of the European Union. CERT-EU helps them to protect themselves against intentional and malicious attacks that would hamper the integrity of their IT assets and harm the interests of the EU. The scope of its activities covers prevention, detection, response and recovery.

Our team is a mix of technical and non-technical experts – diverse, talented, and all of them passionate. On any given day, the digital forensics and incident response team fights to prevent breaches from sophisticated adversaries, our offensive security experts assess the defences of our constituents, while our cyber threat intelligence colleagues, having a unique perspective on the threat landscape, monitor and report on the latest threats and trends out there. And that’s just a small part of the overall picture!

We wish to hire an Operational Cooperation Officer to join our élite Cooperation team, which operates as an interface between the technical and the operational cybersecurity community, ensuring the efficient cooperation of the various stakeholders, such as the European Commission, the European External Action Service, ENISA, Europol, the CSIRTs Network, NATO and other key cybersecurity players worldwide. The Cooperation team has a key role in crisis response in the EU Institutions, Bodies and Agencies, CERT-EU’s constituents.

The team also provides recommendations to CERT-EU’s upper management and supervises their implementation as regards capacity building and structured cooperation.

Under the guidance of the Cooperation leader, the selected candidate will:

• Support policy development in the elaboration, structuring and implementation of CERT-EU activities;
• Provide expert assessment and participate in the development of the operational cooperation with relevant stakeholders;
• Support the efficient and effective relationships, communication and knowledge sharing with constituents, stakeholders, and external partners;
• Support CERT-EU’s activities in its structured cooperation with ENISA;
• Contribute to the development of the cyber crisis response plan and capacity building;
• Support planning and participation in cyber-exercises;
• Organize and oversee CERT-EU’s knowledge base.

The successful candidate should have the following knowledge and skills:

• Relevant academic background in Information Security;
• Proven experience in IT security, particularly in the policy development, risk management, governance and compliance areas;
• Excellent drafting skills, experience in drafting policies, standards, and operational procedures; service delivery experience;
• Good understanding of European Institutions, Bodies and Agencies’ decision-making and consultation processes and cross-functional project stakeholder coordination;
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills including the ability deal with large amounts of information in a limited time;
• Ability to manage parallel tasks and cope with pressure, in particular in crisis situations;
• Very good command of English (written and spoken); knowledge of French is an advantage.

Any of the following elements represent an advantage:

• Bachelor’s or master’s degree in IT or Computer Science;
• Work experience in a multi-layered and complex public sector environment;
• Knowledge of the EU Cybersecurity strategy, the NIS Directive, the Cybersecurity Act, the Cyber Blueprint and the Joint Cyber Unit;
• Work experience in a National/Governmental CSIRT;
• General cyber security certifications (e.g. CISSP);
• Certification in service management (e.g. ITIL) and/or security certifications in the field of risk management, maturity assessment or security management.

The candidate must hold a security clearance at EU SECRET level or be in a position to be security cleared.

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