Opinion: Equifax CEO hired a music major as the company’s chief security officer

Market Watch ^ | 9-15-17 | Brett Arends

[dfwgator]

Sounds like there’s “treble” brewing.

Guess she's not all about that bass.

[central_va]

Not anymore. H-1b killed all of that self taught Teach yourself < insert computer language here > in 5 Minutes types.. Americans are being phased out.

[Publius]

This stuff all strikes a chord with me.

[dfwgator]

She went to UGA, ‘Nuff Said.

[pgkdan]

I call b#ll$hit on this. Some of the best software people, do not have any college degree.

I agree. Millions of people, myself included, have college degrees that are completely unrelated to the careers we eventually succeeded at.

[Gene Eric]

Her responsibility was to have a proficient security team and infrastructure. A brilliant geek isn’t necessarily the best individual for that role.

[central_va]

I guess there weren’t any white males with EE or CompSci degrees available.

[SGCOS]

..But... but... music is like math, right?

Well, anything on a computer is ones and zeros...

[Reno89519]

Not to defend Equifax but the pedigree of the management team is irrelevant BS. Who did she hire to do the work, what did they do or not do, that is more important. And, despite best efforts, things happen.

[hal ogen]

Ooofah! Yikes!

[SaveFerris]

Hiring practices in America went extra stupid from 2008 and beyond.

Which coincides with.....

[AndyTheBear]

Isn’t the proof in the pudding here?

I hope not! Its bad enough when a little pudding spills on nice clean math homework....but that would really be too far.

[mmichaels1970]

To play devil’s advocate, Mauldin does at least have 14 years’ private-sector experience since getting her degrees.

Awful nice to mention that near the end of the article.

Obviously one MUST be approved by our university system to be qualified for important jobs. If we're going to get worked up about the premise here, then many of us are hypocrites. To say on one hand that the universities are indoctrination centers and have little to do with education, then complain that somebody without a degree isn't qualified simply by that measure, is silly.

If she isn't qualified, make a better argument than whether she has a stupid piece of paper from a stupid liberal indoc facility.

[SaveFerris]

winner

[central_va]

Really? No technical education means she has to trust everything her subordinates tell her. She has no way of know intuitively when she is being Bullshitted. And man there must have been a lot BS slung around Equifax.

[Buttons12]

I know a music major. He’s not qualified to walk a seeing eye dog. Not too clever at music either. But you can’t judge them all by one!

[Political Junkie Too]

Agreed. And the music-related disparagement is idiotic.

I wonder what her opinion was on the whole Napster thing and the sharing of music intellectual property? It may offer some insights into what data she considers worthy of extra protection, and what data she can be cavalier about.

IT professionals would be more likely to focus on the integrity of the entire architecture, where others may see security on a case-by-case (or data type by data type) basis.

I'm just speculating here...

-PJ

[SaveFerris]

[ Not too clever at music either. ]

So, he’s into rap? (sorry, couldn’t resist)

[Reno89519]

I disagree. Managers are hired for management, hire security people to do the hands on security work. I’ve worked in IT since my Navy days, since ‘82. Hire people for the jobs they are to do. She was not hired to set up a firewall, she was hired to build a team of experts to do the work.

[taxcontrol]

while I understand your point, allow me to present the counter point that I always run into:

They are expensive (credentialed individuals)
Hardware is expensive
Process improvement is expensive.

It has been my experience that the main reason that cyber security programs do not get implemented is because the Sr leadership / board do not want to invest the time, effort or money.