FBI Officials to Highlight Wide-Ranging Career Opportunities in Cyber Security

By D. Thompson

More than 200 high school students from Washington, D.C. Public Schools and Charles Flowers High School in Prince George’s County, along with Bowie State students and faculty members, will learn about the FBI’s role in combatting our nation’s cyber security threats during a special event hosted by the Department of Computer Science on Friday, October 28. The session is set for 10 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. in the Martin Luther King Jr. Arts and Communications Building auditorium and is open to all students interested in cybersecurity.

Scott Gillis and David Paniwozik, FBI Special Agents who specialize in cybercrime, will share their experience with different types of cases in cyber investigations as well as emerging threats to help students understand the types of cyber security positions available at the FBI and similar law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The agents will describe how an FBI cyber squad is composed and the techniques and resources the agency can utilize during an incident response to an individual or large organization.

“We want students to understand that there are a plethora of jobs that comprise the cyber security field and that they can have a long career path,” said Dr. Rosemary Shumba, chair of the Computer Science Department. “Scott Gillis is a computer scientist at the FBI and uses his expertise to investigate national security and criminal cyber cases while his colleague David Paniwozik worked as a forensic accountant before becoming a cybersecurity special agent.”

Information security analyst, digital forensic examiner, IT auditor, security systems administrator, penetration tester, security engineer, security architect and cryptography engineer are only some of the positions in cybersecurity. Worldwide there are over 3.1 million unfilled cybersecurity jobs.

“The FBI wants to diversify its cybersecurity team and will have a representative from their human resources department to speak with students about career opportunities at the agency,” said Dr. Shumba.