Andrey Pautov

CTI-to-detection practitioner. Threat Intelligence Research Engineer.

Identity

CTI-to-detection analyst with 3+ years across government cyber defence (Israel Police Cyber Defence Unit) and commercial security engineering (XPLG). Profiles adversary infrastructure, reconstructs kill chains, and maps TTPs to ATT&CK-aligned detection candidates. Builds tooling to automate the mechanical parts of CTI triage, malware analysis, and cloud attack simulation.

Shipped 10+ open-source tools: AIDebug (Capstone + FLIRT + CFG + Frida + INetSim, 8 behavioral pattern detectors, SIEM-ready JSON output), stratus-ai (9 AWS + 7 GCP attack simulation modules, 125-test suite, ECS Fargate / Cloud Run), cvss_4.0 (CVSS-BTE + CISA KEV + EPSS, 6 asset-context profiles), and supporting malware, cloud, and CTI tooling. Published 150+ articles and 8 Docusaurus field guides on CTI tradecraft, detection engineering, malware analysis, and cloud security.

Professional Experience

Threat Intelligence Research Engineer

May 2025 – Present

XPLG — Enterprise Security Data Platform · Tel Aviv, Israel

  • Maps adversary TTPs (Iran-nexus campaigns, hacktivist clusters, cloud-native threats) to XPLG platform telemetry fields; produces log-based detection use cases covering endpoint, network, and cloud audit log sources.
  • Translates CTI assessments into Sigma-compatible detection content, hunting hypotheses, and analyst-ready investigation guides scoped to enterprise SIEM and XDR deployment contexts.
  • Builds and documents CTI enrichment workflows covering parser field mapping, anomaly detection logic, and structured threat reporting pipelines for security operations teams.

Head of Red Team — Cyber Defence Unit

Jul 2023 – May 2025

Israel Police — יחידת הגנת הסייבר · Jerusalem, On-site

  • Directed red-team assessments against national law-enforcement infrastructure: reconnaissance, vulnerability chaining, privilege escalation, lateral movement, and attack-path validation in sensitive operational environments.
  • Converted offensive findings into structured defensive intelligence: detection hypotheses mapped to observed attacker behavior, telemetry coverage gap analysis, hardening recommendations, and incident response runbooks.
  • Produced adversary behavior research and hands-on lab environments used by blue team and SOC personnel for detection development and threat hunting training.

Independent Cybersecurity Researcher & Technical Author

Oct 2024 – Present

Self-employed · Israel, Remote

  • Published 150+ articles on CTI tradecraft, detection engineering, malware analysis, cloud security, and security tooling — covering actor-level threat research, detection methodology, and operational tool walkthroughs.
  • Shipped 10+ open-source tools on GitHub including AIDebug, stratus-ai, cvss_4.0, Static Malware Orchestrator, Android Malware Analysis, and PE-Import-Analyzer.
  • Maintains 8 Docusaurus knowledge bases: CTI Analyst Field Manual, Israel Gov Threat Actors CTI, Customer-Driven AI CTI Project, OpenCTI Intelligent Shield, and CVSS v4.0 Field Guide.

Selected Projects

MuddyWater / Seedworm Evidence-labeled actor assessment. 14 ATT&CK TTPs mapped (T1053.005, T1059.005, T1071.001, T1090.001, T1497.003, T1566.001, T1574.002 + 7 more). 7 malware samples analyzed (MD5: 7415d6ba…, SHA256: b154d3fd…). Detection candidates per kill chain stage.
Israel Gov. Threat Actors CTI Public-source sector CTI: 10+ actor profiles. Handala cluster: 22+ confirmed hashes (MD5: 1476f9f4…, SHA256: 3c9dc8ad…), T1003.001, T1505.003, T1567.002, T1585.001 mapped. ASN reuse → passive DNS → crt.sh → 14 additional hosts confirmed.
CTI Analyst Field Manual Docusaurus tradecraft reference: evidence labeling, source reliability, confidence tiering, attribution methodology, infrastructure pivoting, ATT&CK candidate mapping, hunting hypotheses.
AIDebug Malware RE walker: Capstone, FLIRT, CFG, Frida, INetSim, 8 behavioral pattern detectors, SIEM-ready JSON. Real sample: Authenticator.exe (DearStealer) — MD5: c6ab7265…, T1056.001, T1547.001, T1555.003, T1573.001 mapped.
stratus-ai Cloud attack simulation platform: 9 AWS + 7 GCP modules (CloudTrail evasion, privilege escalation, lateral movement, data exfil), 125-test suite, ECS Fargate / Cloud Run deployment.
OpenCTI Intelligent Shield CTI platform engineering: connector design, STIX 2.1 object workflows, enrichment source confidence management, feed integration, and analyst gate logic.
cvss_4.0 CVSS 4.0 enrichment tool: CVSS-BTE scoring, CISA KEV lookup, EPSS probability, 6 asset-context profiles. Context delta example: base 9.8 → 6.2 after OT profile + KEV absence.
PE-Import-Analyzer LIEF-based Windows PE import triage: classifies APIs by risk class (CRITICAL / SUSPICIOUS / UNCOMMON), flags injection-pattern sequences, outputs structured JSON for analyst or LLM ingestion.
Operation DragonRx Lab APT41 pharmaceutical-sector attack simulation lab. Log4Shell initial access (CVE-2021-44228) → Sliver C2 → Active Directory lateral movement → LSASS dump. Dual-layer detection: Wazuh + Zeek + Elastic. Published lab architecture and full attack playbook.
Vulnerable Infrastructure Labs 10+ purpose-built attack labs: GCP + AWS Terraform environments (vulnerable-cloud-lab), 25-misconfiguration Kubernetes lab, IIS/SharePoint/Fluent Bit lab, vulnerable Windows 10 + Active Directory domain, Ubuntu 24.04 lab, DVWA (Ansible-automated), deliberately vulnerable Android app (all OWASP Mobile Top 10), Vulnerable AI Lab (RAG/LLM attack surfaces).

Skills

CTI Tradecraft ATT&CK Navigator · passive DNS · OSINT pivoting · confidence tiering · PIR/SIR frameworks · kill chain reconstruction · attribution methodology · Shodan · Censys · crt.sh · MITRE D3FEND
Detection Engineering Sigma · YARA · hunting hypothesis development · telemetry field mapping · detection backlog construction · log-based use case design · SIEM / XDR rule logic
Malware Analysis Capstone · FLIRT · Frida · INetSim · LIEF · static PE/ELF analysis · APK analysis · CFG extraction · behavioral pattern detection · import table triage
Cloud Security AWS CloudTrail · GCP Audit Log · Kubernetes threat modeling · ECS Fargate · Cloud Run · Terraform · attack simulation · container attack paths
CTI Platforms & Tooling OpenCTI · STIX 2.1 · MISP · connector engineering · NVD API · CISA KEV · EPSS · Python · Bash · C/C++ · PowerShell · Linux

Research & Publications

Education, Earlier Career & Languages