Sacrificial Lamb

Sacrificial Lamb

We are fairly sure that we do not have to remind you of the unfortunate but totally avoidable events that unfolded at the credit rating outfit Equifax last year.

At the time it was reported in the press that three senior Equifax executives had sold a significant number of shares days or hours before the breach was disclosed. Their names? Gamble, Ploder and Loughran.

Even a casual cynic without the cold ice that runs through our veins could not possibly help themselves from thinking ‘Gamble, Plod and Ran’.

Anyhow, no news yet on the prosecution of these individuals by the Security and Exchange Commission. As we have been made aware on numerous occasions by those who claim to know, the share transactions by Gamble, Plod and Ran immediately before the breach was announced, were scheduled transaction events. Nothing to see here.

Unlucky then for a CIO in one of Equifax’s business units, one Jun Ying (no relation), whom on establishing that they had been breached, sent an email (a schoolboy error if ever there was one) and promptly dispensed of a large clutch of shares, in fact all that he could, minimising his losses by over $100,000.

As the article above mentions, there is the very strong whiff of rat, fish and BS about the timings of all of these share sales. Time will tell. What is sure is that Mr Ying has been hung out to dry.

In other news, regular readers may remember the toing and froing around the potential impact of the Spectre and Meltdown (mwahaha) chipset exploits, including the suggestion (by customers and suppliers of ours) that patching might not be necessary and the whole situation had been blown out of all proportion.

At the time we reported that it was only a matter of months before these techniques would be weaponised, a prediction for which we received significant flak. Funny then that this week Microsoft added Spectre exploits to its bug bounty programme. Perhaps everyone might be wearing Joo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses. Time will tell.

If you would like to discuss Spectre, Meltdown or what not to do with your shares when you know the balloon is going up (would you maybe Gamble the lot on Native River in the Cheltenham Gold Cup?), do contact us at: [email protected] or call 020 7517 3900.

In the week we lost Stephen Hawking, Jim Bowen and Ken Dodd (they were never seen together of course), every blogger and journalist is striving for poignant quotations. We are no different.

So it turns out that if you bang two halves of a horse together, it doesn’t make the sound of a coconut.

RIP

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