3 ms·

Qantas is cutting executive bonuses after data breach

82 points by campuscodi 1y ago

SilverElfin 1y ago
The size of the cuts in bonus feels low in absolute terms (800K AUD across all the execs in total), but it is better accountability than any organization in America when it comes to breaches.
- guiambros 1y ago
  Indeed. This should be a standard set by every board: depending on the size of the data breach, the cut on executive salaries goes from 10 all the way to to 50% -- including bonus and stock comp. I bet you we'd drastically reduce the number of companies get hacked overnight.
  - antonvs 1y ago
    > I bet you we'd drastically reduce the number of companies get hacked overnight. The problem is that execs and companies in general don’t know how to achieve that. A great deal of security work at companies is cargo cult stuff designed to meet vague and largely irrelevant standards, without any real engagement with what’s happening in the company’s actual systems. This is not the kind of problem that can be solved simply by motivating the kind of execs that have been allowed to succeed at today’s companies.
    - franga2000 1y ago
      The flip side is true, however: the problem can not be solved without motivating the execs. At the end of the day, if the pile of cash they take home at the end of the day isn't inversely proportional to the number of people they fucked over, the best case is they don't care and the worst case is they'll notice that there's money to be saved (and therefore transfered to their pile) by fucking people over and do it even more. Note that I didn't just say "number of people whose data was leaked" - the same thing applies to other ways of fucking over your users or even employees. Aligning execs' inventives usually isn't the whole solution, but it usually is a necessary part of the solution.
    - hulitu 1y ago
      > The problem is that execs and companies in general don’t know how to achieve that. Would they buy an Mercedes AMG when it will be stoled the next day ? The main problem is that nobody was fired for stollen employee/user data.
- bigiain 1y ago
  Note too, if you read far enough onto the article, Hudson got a "short term bonus cut" of $250,000 - but in the same time period her base salary went up by $1.9 million dollars. This is just bullshit media-spin. > Qantas has slashed short-term bonuses for its senior leadership > Group CEO Vanessa Hudson will see her pay slashed by A$250,000 > the annual report shows that Qantas’ senior leadership salaries were higher than the year-ago period, despite the bonus cuts. Hudson’s annual salary, for example, stood at around A$6.3 million, higher than the A$4.4 million in the previous financial year.
sandworm101 1y ago
Incorrect title. Article states "the Australian carrier says it is cutting the executive bonuses by 15% for the fiscal year." That is not 15% of pay. That is 15% of bonuses, which do not represent all pay.
- cadamsdotcom 1y ago
  Agreed. In the submitted title, the word “pay” should be swapped for “bonuses”.
- tomhow 1y ago
  Updated, thanks!
gaanbal 1y ago
when you're making 6 million a year, a 250k cut is inconsequential my guess is they're doing this to make people feel like they're taking accountability
- seb1204 1y ago
  This is not Qantas first breach. A good step but too little too late in my opinion.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
  It's a lot more accountability than the usual hollow phrases with zero actual consequences, and could be sufficient to actually encourage taking this more seriously.
declan_roberts 1y ago
The correct response is not to cut executive pay, it's to dramatically increase SWE/Secops/Devops pay and stop outsourcing everything.
- jiggawatts 1y ago
  No, the correct response is to use even cheaper outsourcers, but force them to jump through at least a dozen VPN, MFA, PIM, and PSM hoops before landing on a server that has half a dozen security agents slowing it down to a speed that can be best described as "cold molasses" with every packet in and out both triple encrypted and somehow magically "inspected" by an advanced firewall that runs on industrial quantities of snake oil.
  - anonymars 1y ago
    It was my day off man, why you gotta be like that <eye twitches>
- itake 1y ago
  I’m skeptical. Ive never seen a situation where tech workers intentionally created low quality work because they didn’t like they pay they agreed to work for… Usually, it would be a skill issue that could only be solved by additional training or churning headcount.
  - adt 1y ago
    Indeed. >One thing that programmers don’t care about. They don’t care about money, actually, unless you’re screwing up on the other things... You do have to pay competitively, but all said, of all the things that programmers look at in deciding where to work, as long as the salaries are basically fair, they will be surprisingly low on their list of considerations, and offering high salaries is a surprisingly ineffective tool in overcoming problems like the fact that programmers get 15″ monitors and salespeople yell at them all the time and the job involves making nuclear weapons out of baby seals. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/07/a-field-guide-to-developers-2/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/07/a-field-guide-to-d...
jiggawatts 1y ago
The total executive pay cut is less than 10c per affected customer. Their pay rise for the year is greater than the cut. In other words, they gave themselves a smaller bonus increase this year. Not "no bonus". Not "no bonus increase" A smaller increase in the bonus. The French chopped their aristocrats' heads off in an era of smaller income inequality than we're seeing in western countries today.

82 points by campuscodi 1y ago

The size of the cuts in bonus feels low in absolute terms (800K AUD across all the execs in total), but it is better accountability than any organization in America when it comes to breaches.

guiambros 1y ago
Indeed. This should be a standard set by every board: depending on the size of the data breach, the cut on executive salaries goes from 10 all the way to to 50% -- including bonus and stock comp. I bet you we'd drastically reduce the number of companies get hacked overnight.
- antonvs 1y ago
  > I bet you we'd drastically reduce the number of companies get hacked overnight. The problem is that execs and companies in general don’t know how to achieve that. A great deal of security work at companies is cargo cult stuff designed to meet vague and largely irrelevant standards, without any real engagement with what’s happening in the company’s actual systems. This is not the kind of problem that can be solved simply by motivating the kind of execs that have been allowed to succeed at today’s companies.
  - franga2000 1y ago
    The flip side is true, however: the problem can not be solved without motivating the execs. At the end of the day, if the pile of cash they take home at the end of the day isn't inversely proportional to the number of people they fucked over, the best case is they don't care and the worst case is they'll notice that there's money to be saved (and therefore transfered to their pile) by fucking people over and do it even more. Note that I didn't just say "number of people whose data was leaked" - the same thing applies to other ways of fucking over your users or even employees. Aligning execs' inventives usually isn't the whole solution, but it usually is a necessary part of the solution.
  - hulitu 1y ago
    > The problem is that execs and companies in general don’t know how to achieve that. Would they buy an Mercedes AMG when it will be stoled the next day ? The main problem is that nobody was fired for stollen employee/user data.
bigiain 1y ago
Note too, if you read far enough onto the article, Hudson got a "short term bonus cut" of $250,000 - but in the same time period her base salary went up by $1.9 million dollars. This is just bullshit media-spin. > Qantas has slashed short-term bonuses for its senior leadership > Group CEO Vanessa Hudson will see her pay slashed by A$250,000 > the annual report shows that Qantas’ senior leadership salaries were higher than the year-ago period, despite the bonus cuts. Hudson’s annual salary, for example, stood at around A$6.3 million, higher than the A$4.4 million in the previous financial year.

sandworm101 1y ago

Incorrect title. Article states "the Australian carrier says it is cutting the executive bonuses by 15% for the fiscal year." That is not 15% of pay. That is 15% of bonuses, which do not represent all pay.

cadamsdotcom 1y ago
Agreed. In the submitted title, the word “pay” should be swapped for “bonuses”.
tomhow 1y ago
Updated, thanks!

gaanbal 1y ago

when you're making 6 million a year, a 250k cut is inconsequential my guess is they're doing this to make people feel like they're taking accountability

seb1204 1y ago
This is not Qantas first breach. A good step but too little too late in my opinion.
tgsovlerkhgsel 1y ago
It's a lot more accountability than the usual hollow phrases with zero actual consequences, and could be sufficient to actually encourage taking this more seriously.

declan_roberts 1y ago

The correct response is not to cut executive pay, it's to dramatically increase SWE/Secops/Devops pay and stop outsourcing everything.

jiggawatts 1y ago
No, the correct response is to use even cheaper outsourcers, but force them to jump through at least a dozen VPN, MFA, PIM, and PSM hoops before landing on a server that has half a dozen security agents slowing it down to a speed that can be best described as "cold molasses" with every packet in and out both triple encrypted and somehow magically "inspected" by an advanced firewall that runs on industrial quantities of snake oil.
- anonymars 1y ago
  It was my day off man, why you gotta be like that <eye twitches>
itake 1y ago
I’m skeptical. Ive never seen a situation where tech workers intentionally created low quality work because they didn’t like they pay they agreed to work for… Usually, it would be a skill issue that could only be solved by additional training or churning headcount.
- adt 1y ago
  Indeed. >One thing that programmers don’t care about. They don’t care about money, actually, unless you’re screwing up on the other things... You do have to pay competitively, but all said, of all the things that programmers look at in deciding where to work, as long as the salaries are basically fair, they will be surprisingly low on their list of considerations, and offering high salaries is a surprisingly ineffective tool in overcoming problems like the fact that programmers get 15″ monitors and salespeople yell at them all the time and the job involves making nuclear weapons out of baby seals. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/07/a-field-guide-to-developers-2/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/09/07/a-field-guide-to-d...

jiggawatts 1y ago

The total executive pay cut is less than 10c per affected customer. Their pay rise for the year is greater than the cut. In other words, they gave themselves a smaller bonus increase this year. Not "no bonus". Not "no bonus increase" A smaller increase in the bonus. The French chopped their aristocrats' heads off in an era of smaller income inequality than we're seeing in western countries today.