Moving Target Interview. The TRUE COST of being ONLINE (It’s NOT What You Think)
September 9, 2026
AI Summary
5 min readIn the world of cybercrime, the people who get hit are rarely careless. They are busy, competent, and making defensible decisions on distracted days. That is the central insight David Morrow, author of the Moving Target trilogy and vice president of strategic growth at Net Gain IT, brings to his interview on Cyber Crime Junkies. Over five years and more than 400 investigative journalist projects and interviews with cyber leaders and criminal hackers, Morrow built a framework that sidesteps the usual IT lecture. Instead, he tells a true crime story through one composite character, Stevie Parker, a COO in Indianapolis. The goal is not just to raise awareness, but to change behavior by making the reader feel the human cost of a breach, not just the corporate headline.
The Selection Process: You Are a Door Handle, Not a Name
Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.
Read Full Summary →Free • No credit card required
Never miss an episode of Cyber Crime Junkies
Get every new episode summarized in your inbox — free, ~5 minutes to read.
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
What you'll learn
- 1 (00:03) **The Human Cost of Visibility** - The episode opens with the core thesis: news stories about data breaches always end with the company apologizing and offering credit monitoring, but they ignore the human at the epicenter who loses their 401k, job, and identity.
- 2 (06:14) **Why Lead with a Competent Victim?** - David explains the deliberate choice to make Stevie Parker competent rather than careless, because most real cybercrime victims are bright people who were simply busy or distracted.
- 3 (07:55) **"You're Not Being Targeted, You're Being Inventoried"** - David reframes the common belief that businesses aren't interesting enough to target, explaining that cybercriminals operate like sales teams with lists of ideal prospects.
- 4 (09:55) **The Selection Process: You Are Selected, Not Hacked** - David walks through how criminals use data brokers, LinkedIn org charts, and purchased data to build dossiers, exactly like a sales team using ZoomInfo.
- 5 (13:07) **AI Adoption Pressure and Shadow AI** - Book two introduces AI at adoption pressure from private equity buyers, a real concern David sees in companies today.
- 6 (15:55) **How Much Profiling Happens Before First Contact?** - David reveals that the amount of dossiers available on every American adult is remarkable, and AI has made it even easier by triangulating telemetry into dashboards sold on the dark web.
- 7 (20:10) **The Bear (and Shark) Analogy** - David shares his favorite analogy from a former global CISO: you don't have to outrun the bear, just the person next to you.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
Most business owners think they're too small to be a target. They're not being targeted — they're being selected.
Tables get turned. Host interviews David Dean Mauro about his true-crime cybersecurity trilogy The Moving Target — a book series about online camouflage, small business cyber risk, and the real cost of being visible online.
Built from 400+ investigative interviews with cyber leaders, business owners, and criminal hackers, the trilogy follows Stevie Parker: competent, careful, busy — and breached anyway. No acronyms. No lecture. No IT background required.
WHAT WE COVER:
• Why "I'm too small to target" is the most expensive assumption in business
• Selected vs. targeted — how criminal crews actually pick victims
• Shadow AI: the risk sitting on every employee's phone (we unlock ours 260+ times a day)
• How much criminals already know about you, your bank, and your kids
• Inside a ransomware operation: quotas, shift changes, HR, healthcare, a board of directors
• The bear and the shark — why defense in depth beats perfect security
• Social engineering, plain English: they don't hack systems, they hack people
• Who really pays after a breach (hint: it's not the brand in the headline)
Fewer than 4% of cybercriminals look anything like the hoodie in the basement. Cybercrime is organized crime with an org chart.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Turning the Tables: Why a Cybercrime Trilogy for Business Leaders
01:13 The Real Cost of Being Visible Online
02:56 Meet Stevie Parker: The Competent Victim
04:35 "I'm Too Small to Target" — The Most Expensive Myth in Business
06:52 Selected, Not Targeted: How Criminals Actually Pick You
10:20 Shadow AI: The Risk Hiding on Every Employee's Phone
13:03 What Hackers Already Know About You and Your Family
16:35 The Bear and the Shark: Outrunning Cybercrime
19:25 Inside a Ransomware Gang: Quotas, HR, and a Board of Directors
24:24 Beyond the Headlines: Who Really Pays When a Company Gets Breached
Book three of The Moving Target releases September 22. Links and the data-broker opt-out checklist mentioned in the episode: [ADD LINK]
#cybersecurity #smallbusiness #ransomware #shadowAI #socialengineering #cybercrime #businessleadership #datasecurity
True crime enters our homes and businesses daily. Learn from actual people who fight it daily and show you how in a thriller story. The Moving Target Trilogy. Book 3 to be released September 22nd, 2026. Start with any of them. Be a Moving Target.
Special Author pricing (30% off)
The Moving Target Trilogy. Book 3 to be
More from this podcast
Cyber Crime Junkies →