{"id":200223,"date":"2021-06-05T17:42:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-05T22:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/06\/05\/finance-ruins-everything-3\/"},"modified":"2021-06-05T17:42:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-05T22:42:00","slug":"finance-ruins-everything-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2021\/06\/05\/finance-ruins-everything-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Finance Ruins Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>  Case in point, the   <a href=\"https:\/\/mattstoller.substack.com\/p\/private-equity-barons-responsible\">hacking of the MTA in New York City<\/a>, which was caused by lapses at a private equity (PE) owned software firm. <\/p>\n<p>  PE is not about building a good company, long term success, or security.&nbsp;   It&#8217;s about pump and dump, and security is a cost that you can cut to juice   your numbers before they sell out the company. <\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s all pump and dump:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>  <span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\">Oh look, a   <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2021\/06\/02\/nyregion\/mta-cyber-attack.html\">hack<\/a>  of the New York subway system. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\"><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\">    A hacking group believed to have links to the Chinese government penetrated     the Metropolitan Transportation Authority\u2019s computer systems in April,     exposing vulnerabilities in a vast transportation network that carries     millions of people every day, according to an M.T.A. document that outlined     the breach.   <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\">  These hacks are becoming commonplace, but it\u2019s not just because everything is   connected to the internet. It turns out, hackers got in through commercial   software. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\"><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\">    To gain access to the M.T.A. and other systems, the hackers took advantage     of vulnerabilities in <b>Pulse Connect Secure,<\/b> a widely used     connectivity tool that offers workers remote access to their employers\u2019     networks.   <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\">  Pulse Connect Secure is   <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ivanti.com\/company\/press-releases\/2020\/ivanti-acquires-mobileiron-and-pulse-secure\">owned<\/a>  by Ivanti, a software roll-up owned by private equity firms Clearlake Capital   Group, L.P. and TA Associates. I\u2019ve   <a href=\"https:\/\/mattstoller.substack.com\/p\/how-to-get-rich-sabotaging-nuclear\">written<\/a>  about the dangers of private equity owning cybersecurity firms &#8211; Solar Winds   was such a case. (In fact, Thoma Bravo partners &#8211; which owns Solar Winds &#8211;   <a href=\"https:\/\/www.proofpoint.com\/us\/newsroom\/press-releases\/proofpoint-enters-definitive-agreement-be-acquired-thoma-bravo-123-billion?mkt_tok=MzA5LVJIVi02MTkAAAF8rzuVjGSmXxfXX_h0n2WtqTrtR-FWJUMGxiyqMIzxdHecQn9epCBd9uMfokryhpGqN6iMrkbEWqZJmc_vQjr5vyFQnRgvWOlcNFHpp5FEfHLgLbs\">continues<\/a>  to snap up cybersecurity and compliance firms such as Proofpoint.) <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #2b00fe;\">  I\u2019ve gone through job reviews on Glassdoor and Indeed, and Ivanti seems to be   a typical PE roll-up, ruining the product quality, offshoring jobs and firing   people, and just generally destroying enterprise value. Here\u2019s a   <a href=\"https:\/\/www.glassdoor.com\/Reviews\/Ivanti-Reviews-E1529863.htm\">typical review<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>PE takeovers are frequently followed up by the collapse of the firms (usually) after the PE pukes have gotten their vigorish.<\/p>\n<p>We really need to change bankruptcy laws so that these crooks aren&#8217;t able to leave someone else holding the bag.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Case in point, the hacking of the MTA in New York City, which was caused by lapses at a private equity (PE) owned software firm. PE is not about building a good company, long term success, or security.&nbsp; It&#8217;s about pump and dump, and security is a cost that you can cut to juice your &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1060,970,987,1004,1061],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-200223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computer","category-corruption","category-fail","category-finance","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200223"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}