Investor's Corner

Tesla opens job posting for Intrusion Detection Security Engineer amid reports of sabotage

On the heels of a recently-filed lawsuit against a former process technician over allegations of data theft, hacking, and misreporting to the media, Tesla has posted a job opening for an Intrusion Detection Security Engineer.

The new job posting, which could be viewed in full here, was initially shared by journalist Bozi Tatarevic on Twitter. As could be seen in the listing, the person selected for the job would be tasked to analyze attacks against the company and implement contingencies that would ensure the safety of Tesla’s data.  

Tesla’s listing specifies that the ideal candidate for the Security Engineer post should specialize in security monitoring, incident response, as well as forensics to defend the company’s “information, infrastructure, and products.” Experience in dealing with multiple security domains, intrusion detection, incident response, and malware analysis is also a requirement for the post.

The Security Engineer would be working as part of Tesla’s Detection Team, which would be responsible for addressing threats against the company at scale. The Security Engineer would also help in building and running a comprehensive threat detection program,  as well as improvements to logging coverage, analysis, and alerting systems, to name a few. The key responsibilities of a Security Engineer are as follows:

  • Analyze the latest attacker techniques and develop approaches to detect them across the company’s diverse environments and endpoints.
  • Define, implement, and tune detective capabilities and data sources to detect and remediate malicious activity.
  • Work with engineering and operations teams to implement threat detection signals, deploy new tooling, and improve response capabilities.
  • Analyze security data and report on threats and incidents across various platforms and environments.

The new job posting comes as the company filed a lawsuit against former employee Martin Tripp, who allegedly admitted to committing sabotage by hacking the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System, stealing sensitive and confidential data and sending them to outside entities, and misreporting to the media. According to Tesla’s lawsuit, which was filed on a Nevada court on Wednesday, Tripp had acted against the company’s interests as a means of retaliation after an unsuccessful promotion attempt.

Tripp, on the other hand, has sternly denied Tesla’s allegations, claiming in a statement to the Washington Post that he is being singled out for being a whistleblower. Tripp denies Tesla’s allegations that he hacked into the company’s systems, stating that he doesn’t have the “patience for coding.” Tripp also denied the Elon Musk-led company’s claims that he acted out against Tesla after a failed promotion, stating that he could “literally care less.” Addressing the lawsuit recently filed against him, Tripp alleged that he only shared confidential company data to outside parties because he was attempting to warn investors and the public about Tesla’s unsafe practices.

Tripp’s actions against the company were teased by Elon Musk in an email to Tesla’s employees sent over the weekend. The message, which did not identify Tripp by name, stated that Tesla had been a victim of “extensive and damaging sabotage.” In a recent Twitter conversation with Ars Technica reporter Cyrus Farivar on Twitter, Musk noted “there is more” to the sabotage he was referencing in his leaked email, stating that “with 40,000 people, the worst 1 in 1000 will have issues,” translating to roughly ~40 employees with ill intentions against Tesla.  

Tesla opens job posting for Intrusion Detection Security Engineer amid reports of sabotage
To Top