Andrew Fried's unique skill set has earned him a worldwide reputation; his background includes working as a uniformed police officer, a computer programmer and security analyst, and a Senior Special Agent with the US Department of the Treasury, a post he retired from after a 20-year career. Mr. Fried's extensive knowledge allows him to identify large data sources that are seemingly unrelated and combine them to produce findings that would not be otherwise identified. His passion and tenacity for identifying and stopping Internet criminal activity has earned him the respect of leading industry experts. During his last two years at the US Treasury, Mr. Fried was credited with identifying and mitigating over 3,000 fraudulent online schemes. He currently works as a security researcher for a nonprofit organization involved in identifying organized criminal enterprises responsible for fraudulent schemes, denial-of-service attacks, malware propagation, and large-scale botnets. Mr. Fried's work routinely involves data mining and analysis of data sets that contain hundreds of millions of records.

Early in his career, Mr. Fried was a programmer for Bionetics, a life sciences medical research group at the Kennedy Space Center, where he became a technology evangelist, identifying work processes that could be automated, conducting R&D for new computer hardware and software programs, and assisting biostatisticians in aggregating and processing the voluminous research data generated by data acquisition systems. At Bionetics, Mr. Fried was tasked with providing technical support to NASA's Internal Security Office, including one high-profile case involving the arrest and investigation of a kidnapper/rapist. At NASA's suggestion, he moved from Bionetics into a computer security analyst position within the newly formed Lockheed Space Operations Corporation (LSOC). He soon became involved in processing and analyzing digital data related to the kidnapping/rape investigation and developed a suite of forensic software programs. His software became the first set of programs designed specifically for use by law enforcement and was adopted by the FBI, IRS, and Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Soon after, the IRS recruited Mr. Fried for a Special Agent position, citing a need to develop the capability to detect, investigate, and prosecute computer-related crimes. He went on to help establish the Criminal Investigation Division's Computer Investigative Specialist (CIS) program, a similar program for IRS Inspection, the System Intrusion and Network Attack Response Team (SINART), and the Computer Security Incident Response Capability (CSIRC).

More recently, Mr. Fried developed databases and innovative techniques to proactively detect online schemes targeting the IRS. He identified various sources of intelligence and information, developed strategic alliances with private organizations, and designed automated systems to obtain and analyze large data sets for the purpose of identifying and mitigating online schemes. Mr. Fried also designed, developed, and implemented his agency's network-based digital video surveillance system. He additionally developed strategic alliances with a large number of domain registrars, ISPs, government-sponsored CERTs, and private organizations involved in various forms of network security for the purpose of increasing the ability to mitigate fraudulent behavior as quickly as possible. In 2008, Mr. Fried presented a proposal to IRS management to form a new division whose sole mission was to monitor, detect, and mitigate online fraudulent schemes targeting the IRS and US taxpayers. The proposal was adopted and led to the formation of IRS Online Fraud Detection and Prevention (OFDP).

Mr. Fried is on the executive board of directors of the Fraternal Order of Police in Washington, DC, and is affiliated with several security organizations that cannot be named. He is a frequent presenter at Black Hat and Defcon. Mr. Fried has a BS degree in criminology. He can be reached at experts@cutter.com.