Sean Kirby

About Sean Kirby

Cyber Security professional working in the hospital & health care industry. Currently at UPMC\'s Security Operations Center with a focus on SOAR automation initiatives via Palo Alto Networks SOAR platform Cortex XSOAR.

Experience

1. Security Operations Engineer - Intermediate

   UPMC

   Oct 2023 — Present · Pittsburgh, PA, US

   Lead incident response automation efforts at UPMC\'s Security Operations Center utilizing Cortex XSOAR. Title changed to reflect my focus on SOAR initiatives via Cortex XSOAR. In 2024 I completed 320 hours worth of professional services sessions with a dedicated Palo Alto Networks engineer to transform UPMC’s XSOAR environment through standardization and case management initiatives. This transformed my skills using XSOAR and acquired my Palo Alto Networks Certified Engineer certification (PCSAE) shortly after. I\'ve created and implemented over 100 unique automation use cases for incident response to alerts at UPMC’s SOC. This drastically cut down the time alerts take to enrich and remediate. I was able to set up API access to our main external tools through XSOAR integrations to run key processes.In 2025, UPMC switched ticketing systems from Cherwell to ServiceNow. I was responsible for implementing UPMC\'s ServiceNow customized API\'s to work with XSOAR for ticketing and CMDB initiatives. We also moved from XSOAR 6 on premise to XSOAR 8 cloud, where I was responsible for configuring the new environment and assisted with cutover of our EDL\'s. I also provided UPMC\'s Phishing team with a playbook to handle Phishing report investigations and Phishing Simulations.From an administrative side, I am part of a group responsible for keeping UPMC’s XSOAR implementation stable to ensure External Dynamic Lists hosting our companies core firewall lists remain up and stable. I am responsible for content management for our dev-prod set up using Github as our remote repository. I represent UPMC weekly for our sessions and sync ups with Palo Alto customer success team.On top of my automation work, I handle the various IT security investigations across UPMC enterprise. Throughout the year, I monitor and work through a wide variety of security alerts and tickets to ensure safety of UPMC\'s network. This includes occasional on-call duties.

Education

• North Allegheny High School

  High School

  2010 — 2014

• Kent State University

  Bachelor's degree, Computer Information Systems (College Of Business Administration)

  2014 — 2018

Skills

• Visio
• Microsoft Word
• Microsoft Office
• Blogging
• Public Speaking
• Powerpoint
• Microsoft Excel
• Social Media
• Computer Information Systems
• Adobe Photoshop
• Customer Service
• Cerner
• Social Networking
• Management Information Systems (Mis)
• Teamwork
• Computer Systems Analysis
• Microsoft Powerpoint
• Leadership
• Event Planning
• Time Management
• Analytics
• Business Systems Analysis