Cybercrime Runs Like a Fortune 500 Company
In this episode of In Progress, CEO Doug Merritt sits down with Keith Wojcieszek, former Chief of the Secret Service's Cyber Intelligence Section, to unpack what modern cybercrime actually looks like. Keith draws on his career-defining case against Roman Seleznev, once one of the world's most prolific credit card data traffickers, to show how cybercriminal operations now run like Fortune 500 companies or cartels, with developers, brokers, and money launderers each playing a defined, well-compensated role. He also traces how ransomware economics have shifted, why many groups have dropped encryption altogether in favor of simpler extortion, and how AI is making both attackers and defenders faster. Doug and Keith also dig into what separates organizations that handle breaches well from those that don't: preparation. Drawing on incidents like the Colonial Pipeline shutdown and the Stryker attack, they argue the real vulnerability isn't how attackers get in, but how fast and far they can move once inside. It's a conversation about treating cybersecurity as a business risk rather than a purely technical one, and why boards need answers to hard questions before, not during, a crisis.
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Key Summary
- Cybercrime is organized like a business. Roles are specialized and clearly compensated, from malware developers to money launderers, making these networks resilient and hard for law enforcement to dismantle.
- Ransomware economics are shifting. The cost of storing and servicing stolen data has led many groups to abandon encryption entirely in favor of extortion alone.
- Lateral movement, not initial access, is the real threat. Incidents like Colonial Pipeline and Stryker show that how fast attackers spread internally matters more than how they got in.
- Preparation is non-negotiable. Boards should know who's responsible for which decisions in the first 24 hours of an attack, well before one happens.
The Speaker
Doug Merritt spent seven years leading Splunk, the company that defined the detection era of cybersecurity, growing annual recurring revenue from $220 million to $3.12 billion. As Chairman, President, and CEO of Aviatrix, he now makes the case that detection is no longer enough. He has expanded the multicloud networking leader into Zero Trust protection for cloud networks and workloads, and in 2026 declared the arrival of the Containment Era, built on a simple thesis. Trust will be violated. The only question is whether your architecture bounds the blast radius when it is. Earlier, he held senior leadership roles at Cisco, SAP, and PeopleSoft.
Doug Merritt
The Guest
Keith Wojcieszek is a noted authority on cyber and intelligence topics, specializing in cyber threat intelligence, investigations, intellectual property theft, data breaches, and computer intrusions. Before joining Prescient, he founded a global cyber threat intelligence program at an advisory firm and has served as a certified expert witness and frequent thought leader.
Keith spent over a decade with the U.S. Secret Service, where he led the Cyber Intelligence Section and managed the agency's national response to cyber investigations protecting U.S. financial infrastructure. His work targeting transnational organized crime networks led to the apprehension of sophisticated cyber criminals responsible for over $1 billion in financial losses. From 2012–2016, he also served on protection details for the President, Vice President, and senior White House officials, leading physical security operations and establishing emergency action protocols.
Keith Wojcieszek
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