I know some (former) CDK alumni and I'm not surprised. Notorious for paying below market in engineering and IT. A place to cut your teeth but not to stay.
Why assume that good people are only driven by money and pay? Further that good people know all the opportunities and can get a job paying better? Also there is no evidence that I have seen that the places that pay better don't suffer from cyber attacks or ransomware.
A bigger part of the problem (maybe) is the fact that there is a vast amount of info published which helps people improve their hacking skills and make more attacks possible than would be the case if that info was not as easily available. (Note I did not say anything that indicates it wouldn't still be possible or happen but that it wouldn't be as easy to do).
Ah that's easy: Because CDK Global does not utilize the kinds of technologies or operate in a market where it would attract engineers who'd take the job out of passion or curiosity. It's a dime-a-dozen Enterprise Java shop that sells software to car dealerships. It is also not a startup that offers you equity upside.
If you want a job where you get to write Spring Boot Java that gets deployed to AWS for a "mature" employer you're spoiled for choice; and orgs with the same tech stack will pay 30+% more.
The real problem IMO is that Brian MacDonald is focused (again, this is his second shot) at squeezing the company for every penny so he can make a buck turning it public again. I hate to see all the work people are doing 24/7, but a little part of me is giddy with the thought that BM is getting bent over hard by this. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Some of the smaller mom-and-pop stores just use small business accounting systems like quickbooks but those get pretty tedious to maintain with any sizable number of sales or employees per month.
Best case, this startup gets bought out by a larger competitor. Worst case, they get crushed by it.
Oligopolies going to oligopoly.