As a former insider, I agree with all of this. Thanks for being a voice of sanity.
The music degree scrutiny is unnecessarily derogatory and borderline misogynistic. She was a fine executive and predictably the first one thrown under the bus. I can't say she revolutionized anything, but I had no complaints about her competence. (By comparison, the male C-levels in the company I currently work under have relevant degrees from impressive institutions. I see them watching porn, engaging in insider trading and doing God knows what on Tor...while our latest two product launches failed.)
Equifax's fate was sealed by the CEO himself. We had highly-competent security teams that kept up with CVEs, ran CABs, everything a "secure" org should do...but there was always a top-down culture of "I'm not saying don't patch systems, but don't impact production" at every level. This sort of event was inevitable under Smith's leadership.
The music degree scrutiny is unnecessarily derogatory and borderline misogynistic. She was a fine executive and predictably the first one thrown under the bus. I can't say she revolutionized anything, but I had no complaints about her competence. (By comparison, the male C-levels in the company I currently work under have relevant degrees from impressive institutions. I see them watching porn, engaging in insider trading and doing God knows what on Tor...while our latest two product launches failed.)
Equifax's fate was sealed by the CEO himself. We had highly-competent security teams that kept up with CVEs, ran CABs, everything a "secure" org should do...but there was always a top-down culture of "I'm not saying don't patch systems, but don't impact production" at every level. This sort of event was inevitable under Smith's leadership.