Andrey Pautov

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

Professional Summary

CTI-to-detection analyst 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.

Strong offensive security background grounded in real operational environments — 7 years in a special reconnaissance unit (Israel Ministry of Public Security, 2016–2023) and 2 years leading red-team operations against national law-enforcement infrastructure. Offensive experience directly informs detection engineering depth: adversary behavior understood from the inside out.

Published 150+ articles and 8 Docusaurus field guides on CTI tradecraft, detection engineering, malware analysis, and cloud security — all collected at 1200km.com.

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.

Operator — Special Reconnaissance and AntiTerror Unit

2016 – 2023

Israel Ministry of Public Security · Israel

  • Served 7 years as operator and fighter-paramedic in a special reconnaissance unit conducting field operations in high-threat environments.
  • Developed deep understanding of adversary tactics, operational security, and mission planning under real-world conditions — experience that directly shapes current threat actor profiling and red-team methodology.

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.

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
Offensive Security Deep knowledge — red-team operations · reconnaissance · vulnerability chaining · privilege escalation · lateral movement · adversary simulation · attack-path validation
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

Professional Summary

CTI-to-detection analyst 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. Strong offensive security background grounded in real operational environments — 7 years in a special reconnaissance unit (Israel Ministry of Public Security, 2016–2023) and 2 years leading red-team operations against national law-enforcement infrastructure. Adversary behavior understood from the inside out. Published 150+ articles and 8 field guides on CTI tradecraft, detection engineering, and cloud security.

Professional Experience

Threat Intelligence Research Engineer — XPLG May 2025 – Present · Tel Aviv
  • Maps Iran-nexus and hacktivist TTPs to XPLG telemetry fields; produces Sigma-compatible detection use cases for endpoint, network, and cloud audit log sources.
  • Translates CTI assessments into hunting hypotheses, detection content, and analyst investigation guides for enterprise SIEM/XDR deployment contexts.
Head of Red Team — Israel Police Cyber Defence Unit Jul 2023 – May 2025 · Jerusalem
  • Directed red-team assessments against national law-enforcement infrastructure; converted offensive findings into detection hypotheses, telemetry coverage gap analysis, and IR runbooks.
  • Produced adversary behavior research and hands-on lab environments used by blue team and SOC for detection development and threat hunting training.
Operator — Special Reconnaissance and AntiTerror Unit 2016 – 2023 · Israel
  • Served 7 years as operator and fighter-paramedic in a special reconnaissance unit conducting field operations in high-threat environments.
  • Developed deep understanding of adversary tactics, operational security, and mission planning under real-world conditions.
Independent Cybersecurity Researcher & Technical Author Oct 2024 – Present · Remote
  • Published 150+ articles on CTI tradecraft, detection engineering, malware analysis, and cloud security; shipped 10+ open-source security tools on GitHub.
  • Maintains 8 Docusaurus knowledge bases: CTI Analyst Field Manual, Israel Gov Threat Actors CTI, Customer-Driven AI CTI Project, OpenCTI Intelligent Shield.

Skills

CTI Tradecraft ATT&CK Navigator · passive DNS · OSINT pivoting · confidence tiering · PIR/SIR · kill chain reconstruction · attribution methodology · Shodan · Censys · crt.sh · MITRE D3FEND
Detection Engineering Sigma · YARA · hunting hypothesis development · telemetry field mapping · detection backlog · SIEM / XDR rule logic · log-based use case design
Malware Analysis Capstone · FLIRT · Frida · INetSim · LIEF · static PE/ELF/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
Offensive Security Deep knowledge — red-team operations · reconnaissance · vulnerability chaining · privilege escalation · lateral movement · adversary simulation · attack-path validation
Platforms & Languages OpenCTI · STIX 2.1 · MISP · NVD API · CISA KEV · EPSS · Python · Bash · C/C++ · PowerShell · Linux

Education & Background

120+ professional certifications across threat intelligence, detection engineering, malware analysis, cloud security, and offensive security. ICU Paramedic — Magen David Adom (2011–2016). Languages: Russian — native · Hebrew — bilingual · English — professional working proficiency.