Join us in the Fight against Organized Retail Crime

Join the NRF's ORC Investigators Network of over 1,000 LP Professionals

The National Retail Federation (NRF) Organized Retail Crime (ORC) investigators network is made up of over 1000 loss prevention professionals including federal, state and local law enforcement officers.

The network is organized into 7 regions around the country, each hosting quarterly conference calls during which participants share best practices, discuss emerging trends, and connect on investigations that help eradicate crime.

The network also meets each year at NRF PROTECT, the largest retail loss prevention event in North America, and coordinates with various Organized Retail Crime Associations (ORCA) and law enforcement agencies.

The NRF ORC investigators network is Co-Chaired by Gabe Esposito of Verizon and Jon Shimp of Louis Vuitton North America, and is hosted by Bob Moraca of the NRF.

"The network serves as a force multiplier for loss prevention and law enforcement professionals in the fight against ORC, and provides a great forum through which information can be exchanged and losses mitigated" said Esposito.  

"Regardless if you have been in the security industry 30 days or 30 years, we need everyone to sign up and join us in the fight against ORC, be a part of it and help make a difference", said Shimp.

To join and for more information please contact April O'Brien at programs@nrf.com, call 202-783-7971 or visit the NRF's website at www.nrf.com. 
 

Agilence Adds 23,000 New Deployed Locations & Investments
in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Wrap a Strong 2019
Agilence, Inc., the leading provider of operational analytics & reporting solutions to the retail, restaurant, and convenience industries, today announced continued growth driven by product enhancements, capital investments and strong sales.

"Year after year, our data analytics platform continues to improve and advance as a result of our fantastic developers and customer input. 2019 was no different as we expanded the functionality of Agilence's technology and made significant strides in maintaining our position as the leader in data analytics for the retail, restaurant and convenience industries," said Russ Hawkins, President and CEO of Agilence. newswire.com


CONTROLTEK's RFID Veteran Rubin Press Publishes Educational Article Series
Rubin Press, vice president of global sales at CONTROLTEK, is publishing a series of articles about RFID technology. In his articles, Press uses his technical expertise, developed from years of experience partnering with retailers to implement the technology to improve their operations, to explain how RFID technology works and the endless potential for retail and other industries.

"Rubin has a great understanding of the many possibilities of RFID technology, not just from a sales standpoint but as an innovator," said Tom Meehan, CFI, chief strategy officer at CONTROLTEK. "Since he has returned to CONTROLTEK, we have met with many clients to learn about their challenges and collaborate with them to come up with new approaches to their problems." controltekusa.com

The first article in Press's series, "What is RFID and How Does RFID Work?" is being published today and can be found on the CONTROLTEK company blog.


Zebra Technologies Releases 2020 Shopper Vision Study

It's all about the experience: retail insights from around the globe. More than 4,800 customers and 1,500 retail professionals were surveyed to help retailers gain a deeper understanding of their shoppers. See what they have to say about the state of the industry, how to deliver a better shopping experience and what to expect in the future.

Meet and exceed your customer's expectations. Today's customer demands a flawless shopping experience in-store and online. Discover how to provide them with access to knowledgeable associates, smooth transactions and lightning-fast order fulfillment.

Download the study here.
 

A timeline of events surrounding the Bezos phone hack

Bezos hack connected to Khashoggi murder and the Washington Post's subsequent media coverage.

News -- almost impossible to believe -- broke yesterday that the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, was somehow involved in the hacking of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.

According to reports from the Guardian and the Financial Times, the Saudi royal family member, commonly referred to as MbS, allegedly sent a booby-trapped video to Bezos via a WhatsApp message last year, on May 1, 2018.

A day later, the entire affair still seems like a bad Hollywood movie script. However, the reality is that there's a lot of context and background to these accusations, along with a long history of enmity and antipathy from the side of the Saudi prince.

Below is a timeline of all the events that tie in with the Khashoggi murder and the Bezos iPhone hack. We took this timeline from a report published today by two human rights experts at the United Nations, and we updated it with today's most recent revelations.

Starting in October of 2013, with 31 dates and separate happenings. Quite interesting and obviously targeting and attacking Bezos on a global level. Talk about having a target on your back.  What a nightmare for security. While at the same time being extremely challenging.

What a read! zdnet.com

Former CEO & Co-Founder of Aspen Skiing Co. Gets 6 Years Prison
for Stealing $6M & Selling Online

Husband & Wife Duo Sold Co. in 2003 & Started Stealing 13,000 Pairs of Skis Over 12 Yrs

Former Aspen Skiing Co. executive and city Councilman Derek Johnson was sentenced to six years in prison Tuesday for methodically stealing and selling more than 13,000 pairs of company-owned skis worth nearly $6 million over more than 12 years. 

"The scale and consistency of the theft dwarfs prior (theft) cases that have come before the court," District Judge Chris Seldin said. "The scale and the amount of theft is enough to justify a Department of Corrections sentence. This is an incredibly serious offense."

Johnson, who served one term on the Aspen City Council and ran for mayor in 2013, pleaded guilty in November to one count of felony theft between $100,000 and $1 million and faced between four and 12 years in prison under terms of a plea deal with the District Attorney's Office. His wife, Kerri, 48, also pleaded guilty to one count of felony theft in connection with the scheme to sell stolen skis on eBay, though prosecutors agreed not to ask for prison when she is sentenced next month. 

The couple will have to pay back $250,000 to Skico under terms of the plea deal. Johnson's wife was the bookkeeper for their long-running eBay business.

Johnson and his wife peddled more than 13,000 pairs of skis between 2006 and November 2018, when they were caught, Nottingham said. That number includes at least 3,800 new pairs of skis, and equates to nearly three pairs of skis stolen from his employer and sold every day for 12 years, Nottingham said. 

"This was a massive theft operation," aspentimes.com


Digital Signage - Where does LP Fit into the Messaging?
With digital signage being a whole new frontier in the retail space and one that is destined to replace traditional store signage, where does LP fit in and how do we make the most impact on the consumer?

Obviously this will be a difficult area and not an easy subject for the various groups inside a retailer. Marketing will dominate along with the merchants, HR and legal.

However, this represents an opportunity to positively shape the consumer view towards the company with the appropriate messages about courteous, attentive, knowledgeable staff and maintaining and ensuring a safe and secure shopping environment. These two banners alone can address a wide array of subjects, practices, and technology applications. From surveillance to 'See Something - Say Something' to calming de-escalating direct and subliminal messaging, the digital signage technology, with its ability to identify viewers, could be as powerful on the masses as any marketing campaign. Because it's exactly that. A marketing campaign meant to reduce shoplifting, violence and robberies and promote a positive company profile. That, in turn, drives sales.

Given the recent studies about Gen Z's purchasing decisions being guided by their concern about a retailer's position on different social issues, this is a great opportunity for Loss Prevention to truly become proactive and show how positive messaging about such critical subjects can be integrated in the overall messaging through the digital signage program of a store and have a huge impact on behavior and outcomes.

Utilizing the right resources and subject matter experts, this could become a powerful tool for a retailer and Loss Prevention has a vital role to play.
 

The Online Sales Train Is Gaining Speed

Here's the Proof in Today's News

Will store closures worsen in 2020? Is there any doubt?

9,300 Stores Closed in 2019

More than 9,300 stores turned off their lights last year, according to Coresight Research, and three weeks into 2020, chains including Bed Bath & Beyond, Chico's, GameStop, Gap, J.C. Penney, Lucky's Market, Macy's, Papyrus, Pier 1 Imports and others have announced plans to shutter locations. Cushman & Wakefield has estimated that as many as 12,000 stores may close this year.

The expectation that struggling retailers will shutter stores is strong despite denials to the contrary. retailwire.com

After Bankruptcy, Nearly Half of Retailers Close All Stores

Liquidations are more prevalent in retail bankruptcies while top lenders recover on average 91 cents on the dollar, according to research by Fitch Ratings.

Secured creditors are recovering all or most of their investments when retailers file for bankruptcy protection, even as nearly half these companies don't survive with a physical presence, according to Fitch Ratings research.

Among large retail and supermarket chains that filed for bankruptcy protection over the past 15 years, 45% closed all of their stores, the ratings firm said in a new report. Fitch found that the bankruptcies of 25 out of 55 retail and supermarket companies ended in liquidations.

Currently, nine retailers are on Fitch's watch list for being at risk of default, including bankruptcy, based on concerns over their loans and bonds. The ratings agency included J.C. Penney Co., Fresh Market Inc., J.Crew Group Inc., Fairway Market, Serta Simmons Bedding LLC, as well as Ascena Retail Group Inc., which owns Ann Taylor, Lane Bryant, and Catherines. wsj.com

E-commerce could kill 30K stores and half a million jobs by 2025

The Online Sales Train in Steaming Full Speed

56,000 Stores Have Closed - 670,000 Jobs Lost Since 2008

E-commerce has been a net negative - an agent of "destructive destruction" - for the retail industry writ large, according to a new study from credit insurance company Euler Hermes. The study found that 56,000 stores, or 10.7% of the discretionary retail footprint, have closed in the U.S. and 670,000 net jobs (9.6% of the total) have been lost since 2008.

More, 41% of retailers have seen their profit margins decrease in that timeframe. Those various retail losses have tracked with the expansion of e-commerce, which has grown well ahead of other retail segments at 10.5% per annum. But for every job created in e-commerce, four and a half jobs are lost by traditional retailers, according to the study. 

And the bloodletting could continue, according to the study's author, Aurélien Duthoit​, sector advisor for retail, technology and household equipment with Euler Hermes. Dethoit estimates that continued e-commerce penetration could eliminate another 500,000 jobs and 30,000 retail establishments by 2025

For traditional retailers, efforts to boost e-commerce and omnichannel capabilities bring new expenses and risks, and won't necessarily save a distressed retailer, according to the study.

That anything might slow the online sales train is "[p]ossible, but very unlikely," Duthoit​​ writes. retaildive.com
 

SHRM Series Part 3
Workplace Drug Testing: Can Employers Still Screen for Marijuana?
Medical and recreational marijuana use are more socially acceptable than ever, and states are legalizing use of the drug at a rapid pace. So should employers even bother testing for weed anymore?

Employers that drug test typically use a five-panel screen that includes amphetamines, cocaine, marijuana, opiates and phencyclidine (PCP). Some employers, however, have dropped marijuana from the panel.

"More and more employers appear to be treating marijuana use like alcohol use and ignoring off-duty recreational use," said Anne-Marie Welch, an attorney with Clark Hill in Birmingham, Mich.

"A growing number of states have taken their own steps to ease restrictions on employees' marijuana use for medicinal or recreational purposes off duty," Welch noted. So employers that need or want to continue testing or disciplining for marijuana use must know the applicable state laws, including the court decisions that interpret those rules. shrm.org

At $50 a Pack, Australia's Tobacco Black Market is Booming

Meijer Extends In-Store Food Waste Reduction Program With Flashfood

Fairway Market in the Big Apple filed Chapter 11 plans to sell all stores

NSA issues guidance for securing the cloud

The National Security Agency on Wednesday released a detailed examination of methods used to attack cloud providers amid growing concern these services could be a weak spot in companies' cyber defenses.

The NSA advisory contains detailed descriptions of attack methods observed by U.S. intelligence agencies and steps on how to counter them. WSJ Pro Cybersecurity reported Dec. 3 that the NSA was compiling this guidance.

Cloud providers and managed service providers are attractive targets for hackers, as a successful attack could provide access to sensitive systems for dozens or hundreds of client companies.

The guidance focuses on four primary areas of cloud security:

● Misconfigurations in cloud systems. As an example, the NSA cited configuration errors from defense contractors that exposed data from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in 2017.

● Poor access controls, such as weak authentication methods. The agency said the Iran-based Mabna hacking group has been able to bypass multifactor authentication systems by subverting other controls.

● Crowded servers. Some systems that allow several companies to be hosted on the same cloud server can be vulnerable to attack, the NSA warned, enabling hackers to attack multiple targets with one successful breach.

● Supply-chain vulnerabilities. The NSA cited the ShadowHammer cyberattack campaign in March, which used flaws in computers made by Asustek Computer Inc. to install malware through legitimate software updates as one example.

Malicious insiders, criminals and nation-states are examining weaknesses in cloud security, the NSA said, with varying objectives. Criminals and insiders might look to exploit sensitive information or destroy it, for instance, while nation-states might attempt to use access to these servers to gain entry to more sensitive systems at a cloud provider's customer. Untrained or neglectful employees also could inadvertently allow attackers to gain access to sensitive information by failing to properly follow security procedures, the agency said. wsj.com

To Avoid Disruption, Ransomware Victims Continue to Pay Up

Reactions Are Split - 33% Pay & 32% Don't

Proofpoint polled 600 IT security professionals from around the world on trends related to phishing and other email-borne threats.

The results showed that 33% - or nearly 200 of the organizations represented in the survey - paid a ransom last year to get their data back after experiencing a ransomware infection. Another 32% reported being infected with ransomware but refusing to accede to attacker demands for payment.

Sixty-nine percent of the organizations that paid a ransom said they got back access to their data and systems after the first payment. But 22% never regained access to their data after paying the demanded ransom, while 7% got hit with additional demands and ended up walking away empty-handed anyway. Two percent were forced to pay more money to regain access to encrypted systems and data.

Proofpoint said it is unclear what the organizations that didn't pay a ransom did to recover access to encrypted systems and data or what disruption they might have endured as a result of their refusal to pay.

A September 2019 Dark Reading survey showed a nearly fourfold increase over 2018 - from 4% to 15% - in ransomware victims that paid to get their data back after an infection.

The survey results are likely to dismay many security experts who say that paying ransoms is only going to encourage more attacks. Over the past 18 months or so, threat actors have shifted from mass-volume spray-and-pray attacks on consumers to more targeted and carefully planned ransomware campaigns against businesses, government, and public-sector entities. Municipal entities, in particular, have been targeted heavily. darkreading.com

$2.8 billion in Bitcoin sent to crypto exchanges by criminals in 2019
Blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis said Wednesday that it traced $2.8 billion in Bitcoin being sent by criminals to crypto exchanges in 2019, with the bulk of those transactions going to cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Huobi.

"While exchanges have always been a popular off-ramp for illicit cryptocurrency, they've taken in a steadily growing share since the beginning of 2019. Over the course of the entire year, we traced $2.8 billion in Bitcoin that moved from criminal entities to exchanges," Chainalysis noted, with 27.5% of that amount going to Binance and 24.7% going to Huobi.

On the two exchanges, a small group of accounts that received more than $100 billion worth of BTC in 2019 took in most of the illicit funds, Chainalysis found. 75% of the total amount received on Huobi and Binance went to 810 of the highest-receiving accounts.

"Overall, just over 300,000 individual accounts at Binance and Huobi received Bitcoin from criminal sources in 2019," Chainalysis noted. finance.yahoo.com

For Mismanaged SOCs, The Price Is Not Right

New research: Security operations centers suffer high turnover & yield mediocre results for the investment they require.

The security operations center (SOC), considered a core component of many organizations' cybersecurity strategies, is plagued with high costs and myriad challenges. Businesses running a SOC often struggle to achieve a high return for what proves to be an expensive investment.

These findings come from a new report entitled "The Economics of Security Operations Centers: What Is the True Cost for Effective Results?" conducted by the Ponemon Institute and commissioned by Respond Software. Researchers surveyed 637 IT and IT security practitioners who work in organizations running SOCs to learn about their economics and effectiveness.

Only 51% of organizations surveyed are satisfied with their SOC's effectiveness in detecting cyberattacks. Forty-four percent say their SOC's ROI is worsening.

The most important SOC activities, they say, are the minimization of false-positives (84%), threat intelligence reporting (83%), monitoring and analyzing alerts (77%), intrusion detection (77%), use of technologies such as automation and machine learning (74%), agile DevOps (73%), threat hunting (71%), and cyber forensics (69%). darkreading.com

SOC Benchmarking Study - How Does Yours Stack Up?

Microsoft Error Exposed 250 Million Elasticsearch Records

Updated FTCODE Ransomware Now Steals Credentials, Passwords

How the World's Largest Banks Use Advanced Graph Analytics to Fight Fraud