Information Security Architect

Boston, MA, United States

Position Summary

The BEST Program Security Architect will work with the BEST Security Lead, BEST Compliance Lead, BEST Technical Lead, Executive Office of Technology Services and Security (EOTSS) security team, and product vendors. The primary responsibility is to implement business and technical controls that meet specific security requirements and to define processes and standards that maintain approved security configurations in the new Financial Solution. This role ensures confidentiality, integrity, availability, risk management, and compliance of the business solution.

s a key member of the project's Security Team, the Security Architect will work closely with other team members to develop and implement a comprehensive information security program. This includes:

• Design and recommend protocols and procedures for monitoring the product vendor's performance against Service Level Agreement standards regarding data security, annual security audits, and disaster recovery testing.

• Define security policies, processes and standards related to end- user roles, data access for application users, and how users will be provisioned and de-provisioned.

• Provide input on selection, deployment, and oversight of security technologies.

The Security Architect will participate in recommending strategies for:

• Monitoring compliance with vendor and Commonwealth IT security policies and applicable laws.

• Defining procedures for investigating and reporting security incidents.

• Contribute in developing, testing, and documenting security procedures, including disaster recovery, business

continuity, backups, and incident response.

• Monitoring and assessing business continuity and disaster recovery programs, network penetration, and other tests

to assess application vulnerability; and

• Working with the BEST Compliance Lead, participate in risk and compliance assessment reviews of the new Financial solution and supporting services and infrastructure.

The Software as a Solution (SaaS) model chosen by the Commonwealth includes data security protocols and procedures that are audited annually by a third party. The Service Level Agreement (SLA) and contract documentation between the Commonwealth and the system integration and product vendor outline the terms and conditions for maintaining data security, which will be monitored by the Commonwealth. The Security Architect will assist the Commonwealth in implementing necessary procedures to meet risk mitigation requirements and monitor vendor compliance with security protocols.

This role involves collaborating with program functional teams to identify end-user roles and permissions for implementing the new solution across in multiple agencies and user types, ensuring appropriate data access. User security procedures will be developed in conjunction with the BEST Security Lead, the system integration and product vendor, and agency staff responsible for user provisioning and deprovisioning. The Security Architect will report to the BEST Security Lead, who reports to the BEST Solution Technical Lead. Close coordination with the BEST Compliance Lead and the BEST program's Independent Verification and Validation (IV &V) vendor will be required.

This role is responsible for translating complex security problems into sound technical solutions, providing technical security and architectural direction to technology business teams, ensuring that development efforts are adhering to security design and compliance standards and requirements, providing insights and guidance on overall secure system design, and documenting and communicating security architectural requirements.

Specific Duties

This position will focus on the Platform (hosting) security and will align with the BEST security lead on application/user security, including but not limited to:

o Work with Executive OTSS to onboard Advantage 4 to work with the Commonwealth Single Sign On -SSO for employees and for vendors.

o Remediate department users that are not on mass.gov, to create a way for those department user access Advantage 4 when not on mass.gov.

o Will oversee security SLAs to ensure appropriate security reports are created, as well as create a process to for review to ensure SLAs are monitored by the Commonwealth.

o Work with EOTSS on and oversee security testing (pen-testing) and to review/remediate results/issues, as necessary.

o Work with the BEST Compliance Lead to develop strategies, procedures and recommended roles and responsibilities to enforce security requirements and address identified risks related to the use of the new Financials solution and suitability of underlying internal controls and technologies.

o Provide advice regarding end user security roles and groups, data access controls and security role

provisioning (onboarding) and de-provisioning (offboarding) protocols to ensure that data are accessed appropriately in the new Financials solution.

o Participate in disaster recovery, business continuity, back up, operational set up and configuration, as well as support disaster recovery/business continuity testing, documentation, and improvement.

o Oversee execution testing of Security Incident Event Management (SIEM) across several security domains including Cloud SaaS vendor, Comptroller's office, and EOTSS.

o Oversee integration testing of EOTSS Single Sign On (SSO), EOTSS Identify Access Management (IAM), EOTSS Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Cloud SaaS Vendor user access management, and Comptroller's access controls and provisioning processes.

o Implement agreed mitigations and solutions to address business and technology vulnerabilities.

o Document and implement technical controls, processes and procedures related to data security in conjunction with the BEST Security Lead, Technical Lead, Compliance Lead and Commonwealth Executive Office of Technology and Security Services (EOTSS).

o Assist security administrators and IT staff in the resolution of reported security incidents. Act as a liaison between incident response leads and subject matter experts. Monitor daily or weekly reports and security logs for unusual events.

• Assist in identifying security requirements, using methods that may include risk and business impact assessments.

Components of this activity include but are not limited to:

o Review of SLA requirements agreed to by the Commonwealth and the SI and product vendor(s).

o Review of Commonwealth IT policies related to data security.

o Review of Commonwealth Risk Management Office assessments and recommendations regarding data security risk mitigation.

o Conduct additional business system analysis as needed. Design future state security solution supporting data and application security needs and environment security needs across multiple stakeholders.

o Identify business and technology security vulnerabilities and make recommendations to program leadership and stakeholders.

• Working with the BEST Compliance Lead, assess compliance with risk and cybersecurity frameworks and standards such as NIST, ISO, COSO, PCI, FERPA, and GLBA.

• Assist in the coordination and completion of information security operations documentation.

• Play an advisory role in application development and implementation to assess security requirements and controls and assist in assuring that security issues are addressed throughout the project life cycle.

• Support the Program and the BEST Security Lead to identify approved end users of the new solution and coordinate provisioning of users for Day One go live. Drive testing of go live security solution end-to-end.

• Provide advice to security administrators on normal and exception-based processing of security authorization requests including the use of system integration or product vendor tools that monitor system use and data access irregularities.

• Research, evaluate and recommend information-security-related hardware and software, including developing business cases for security investments.

• Analyze the result of system integration and product vendor audits or audits performed by third parties to produce recommendations of acceptable risks and risk mitigation strategies regarding security. Provide recommendations regarding audit finding remediation, including providing feedback and suggestions on managerial responses to findings, tracking progress and providing status updates to the BEST Team.

• Provide ongoing advice and third-level support to Security operations and IT for incident response, indicators of compromise (IOC's), vendors security vulnerability notifications, law Enforcement security alerts, etc.

• Maintain an awareness of existing and proposed security-standard-setting groups, state and federal legislation and regulations pertaining to information security. Identify regulatory changes that will affect information security policy, standards, and procedures, and recommend appropriate changes.

• Research and assess new threats and security alerts and recommends remedial actions.

• Work with BEST Operations Lead to ensure security operational actions are properly implemented.

• Assist/support BEST Technical Implementation Lead on Authority to Operate (ATO) requirements identification, definition, and validation.

• Execute "tabletop" security reviews of end-to-end go live security processes.

Required Skills

• In-depth exposure to technical configurations, technologies, and processing environments in one or more projects of similar size and complexity to BEST.

• In-depth knowledge and understanding of information risk concepts and principles as a means of relating business needs to security controls.

• Knowledge of and experience in developing and documenting security architecture and plans, including strategic, tactical and project plans.

• Documented experience with common information security management frameworks, such as International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2700x and the ITIL, SOX, COBIT and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) frameworks.

• Experience in architecting and implementing cloud-based security solutions.

• Strong knowledge of security tools and capabilities, such as: IDM and SSO.

• Extensive experience in integrating security tools and 3rd party vendor solutions.

• Exceptional planning, organization, communication, prioritization, and business analysis skills.

• In-depth knowledge of risk assessment methods and technologies.

• Proficiency in performing risk, business impact, control, and vulnerability assessments.

• Excellent technical knowledge of mainstream operating systems and a wide range of security technologies, such as network security appliances, identity, and access management (IAM) systems, anti-malware solutions, privilege access management (PAM), data loss prevention (DLP), encryption at-rest and in-transit, multi-factor authentication (MFA), end-point-security, vulnerability scanning and patch management, automated policy compliance tools, and desktop security tools.

• Experience in developing, documenting, and maintaining security policies, processes, procedures, and standards.

• Knowledge of network infrastructure, including routers, switches, firewalls, and the associated network protocols and concepts.

• Strong analytical skills to analyze security requirements and relate them to appropriate security controls.

• Documented written and verbal communication skills.

Preferred Skills Experience with Software as a Service cloud implementations particularly those in which legacy on premise applications have been migrated to cloud delivery options.

Security solution design and development leveraging multiple security teams with disparate roles and responsibilities using a cloud SaaS solution.

Experience in migrating security solutions from legacy on-premises environment into a cloud solution within a highly regulated environment.

Experience in performing / supporting security audits and compliance validation.

Documented ability to interact with personnel at all levels and across all business units and organizations, and to comprehend business imperatives.

Minimum Entrance Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, system analysis or a related study, or equivalent experience.

• Minimum of five years of design and implementation experience in IT, with a deep knowledge in a minimum of two of the following technical disciplines: infrastructure and network design, application development, application programming interfaces (APIs), middleware, servers and storage, database management, data security, and system administration and operations

• Experience in generation of Security materials, including but not limited to compliance adherence, security operational procedures, security implementation plans, and network and security diagrams.

• Minimum of three years of security architecting design and implementation with security certifications, such as: SIA Security +