Guest

I'm Shannon Friedlander, I'm a special agent with the FBI. I'm assigned to a national security cyber squad. Our squad specifically deals with national security matters dealing with the Middle East. Some people will come into the bureau, and they know from the time they're four years old that they wanna, I wanna be a special agent in the FBI. And I really had no clue. I had an interest in forensics and psychology. So I majored in psychology in college, with a minor in criminal justice. But then I actually had a friend that applied to the FBI, and I'm like. [SOUND] And the more I started looking into it, the more interested I became. When I arrived at my first field office in Philadelphia, the FBI didn't stand up the cyber division as we know it today till about a year and a half later. I was working white collar and environmental crimes at the time. So what happened is it was literally supervisors coming around to squads and offices saying, this is a program, this is the division that we're standing up, who would like to do this job? So it sounded pretty appealing to me. So I raised my hand to do it. And I've been an FBI agent for 18 years now. 

If you're interested in joining the FBI, I recommend living a clean life: no drugs, no criminal activity, and don't make poor choices on social media sites. Make good decisions. Focus on making good grades and being a good person. Become educated on the core requirements to become an FBI Special Agent sooner rather than later.

When I started in the cyber division, I didn't have a computer science background and felt insecure about it. It just took time to work through that. Now the division is developed and I can work with a partner who has a computer science background.

There is no typical work day in the FBI. For the most part, I review large amounts of data from many different sources in furtherance of the investigations I am conducting. I work with the public and other government agencies regarding national security cyber matters. I make decisions about how to address certain cyber security threats and then act on those decisions accordingly. In cases that I can work towards criminal prosecution, I routinely work with the United States Attorney Office.

Supervisory Special Agent

I won't get hired because I'm not good enough.

Shannon Friedlander

About Shannon

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