Security Research, Intern

At Illumio, the Office of the CTO and Security helps shape the company's strategic technical direction while advancing the security of Illumio and our customers. Within this organization, the Threat Research team studies emerging threats, adversary behaviors, and evolving technologies, working closely with Engineering and Product Management to translate research into stronger security capabilities and customer outcomes. The Security Research Intern will work alongside experienced threat researchers to investigate real-world cyber threats, understand how attackers operate, analyze their behaviors and infrastructure, and explore how research can inform new security insights and detection capabilities. This is a 12 week internship program beginning on May 24th 2027 or June 21st 2027, with 4 on-site days a week at the Sunnyvale, CA headquarters.

Responsibilities

Research emerging threats, vulnerabilities, attacker campaigns, and evolving adversary techniques; Analyze threat intelligence including malicious IP addresses, domains, attacker infrastructure, and adversary behaviors; Investigate network activity associated with command-and-control, suspicious communications, and other potentially malicious behavior; Analyze security and network telemetry to identify patterns that may distinguish normal from suspicious activity; Explore machine learning and statistical techniques for security use cases such as anomaly detection, behavioral analysis, clustering, and classification; Experiment with ML models and detection approaches, evaluating their effectiveness, limitations, and potential false positives; Help build and curate structured datasets connecting threats, campaigns, indicators, vulnerabilities, and attacker techniques; Explore how threat intelligence and security telemetry can be combined to develop new detection ideas; Collaborate with threat researchers, data scientists, engineers, and product teams to communicate findings and potential security improvements; Present research, experiments, and key learnings at the end of the internship

Requirements

Currently enrolled in a full-time Bachelor's or Master's degree program in Computer Science, Cybersecurity, Data Science or a related technical field with an expected graduation date in Winter 2027/Spring 2028; Strong interest in cybersecurity, security research, threat intelligence, or machine learning; Exposure to threat intelligence concepts such as IOCs, attacker campaigns, malware, vulnerabilities, or MITRE ATT&CK; Basic understanding of networking concepts and protocols such as TCP/IP, DNS, and HTTP/HTTPS; Familiarity with Python, SQL/KQL, notebooks, or similar programming and data-analysis tools, with an interest in analyzing security and network telemetry; Ability to research technical topics and clearly communicate findings; Curiosity about how attackers operate and how their behaviors can be detected; Candidates selected for an internship must have valid U.S. work authorization for the full duration of the internship

Nice to have

Experience working with network or security telemetry, logs, or large datasets; Familiarity with Python data analysis tools such as pandas or NumPy; Basic understanding of machine learning or statistical techniques, such as classification, clustering, or anomaly detection; Experience experimenting with ML libraries such as scikit-learn, PyTorch, or similar frameworks; Interest in applying machine learning to cybersecurity problems such as behavioral analysis or threat detection; Participation in CTFs, security competitions, academic research, open-source projects, or personal security projects

Benefits

Stipend to help support you during your internship; Events & Experiences providing opportunities to connect with fellow Illumineers and experience the company culture; Giving Back opportunities to volunteer and make an impact in the community; Meals & Snacks including a fully stocked office, snacks and beverages, and catered lunch from local restaurants every day