Amelia Fusaro was named President and COO of Wren Solutions. Prior to working at Wren Solutions, Amelia was the owner of Consultant-Emerging Technology Companies. She has also been VP of Marketing for Technology, Inc. and Director of Marketing for Datastream Systems, Inc. Congrats Amelia!

Mark Lummus was named VP of Operations for Wren Solutions. He is also currently the owner of iPixFolio.com and FingerTipFun.com. Mark has previously worked at Nokia, Intellisync Corporation, AppForge, Inc. and Ratio DesignLab, Inc. Congrats Mark!

Robert Holm was named Senior Director, Security US Operations for McDonald's Corporation. He previously worked with the McDonald's Corporation for four years in 1998 as the Director of Global Security. Prior to working with the McDonald's Corporation, Robert worked with Navistar for over a year, as their Regional Security Manager. Before his job with Navistar, Robert held security positions with Tribune Company, APEX, Imation Corporation, 3M and Honeywell Incorporated. Congrats Robert!

Tysons Corner Mall at Christmas: Identity Theft, Nearly 100 Arrests for Stolen Goods Fairfax County police patrolling both Tysons Corner Malls in plain clothes during the 2011 Christmas holidays made 83 arrests and recovered nearly $45,000 in stolen merchandise. But they discovered that identity theft --- someone else using your credit card information to buy merchandise-- is a larger problem than shoplifting. "The biggest thing we saw in the mall was credit card fraud," Lt. Jeff Powell, deputy commander of the McLean Police District, told the monthly meeting of the Citizens Advisory Committee last week. "One guy had 27 credit cards on him." (Source patch.com)

Canadian mastermind who gained access to commercial data providers, including LexisNexis and ChoicePoint, and ran a high-tech identity theft operation gets 18 years in prison. Adekunle Adetiloye was accused of organizing a scheme to open nearly 600 fraudulent bank accounts and bilk 22 major banks, potentially costing credit card firms and banks up to $5 million. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nick Chase in North Dakota, where the case was handled, said the 40-year-old had an "insatiable hunger for other people's money." Investigators said Adetiloye incorporated two different companies in Delaware — Syspac Financial Services and Commet Consultant Inc. — that claimed to be debt collection companies. He gained access to commercial data providers, including large-scale outfits LexisNexis and ChoicePoint that only allow access to law enforcement, financial services and debt collection companies. With access to those data providers, Adetiloye and others obtained the personal identification information to about 38,000 people, most of whom were medical professionals, and used that information to open credit card, debit and checking accounts, prosecutors said. Brett Bogan, the security investigations manager at Reed Elsevier, the parent company of LexisNexis and ChoicePoint, told the court that data breaches of this type are extremely rare and knew of only one other case like it. He said the company sent out notices to more than 32,000 people whose personal information was compromised by the scheme. (Source associated press)

Weis Markets has been upgrading their Loss Prevention effort over the last year with hiring their first Vice President of Loss Prevention in company history- Mike Limauro. Since joining Weis Markets Mike has brought on two new Regional Director's of Loss Prevention, Rob Wynn and Chris Detray and they're upgrading their LP program significantly.

South Carolina gives in to Amazon and gets a second fulfillment center in Spartanburg County. Last year South Carolina agreed to let Amazon open its first fulfillment center in Lexington County and not require Amazon to collect state sales tax even with a physical presence. So Amazon confirms it a second time and now is opening another one. That means LP jobs as well. (Source internetretailer.com)

Home Depot and PayPal team up and change the way customers pay for merchandise. Being piloted in 51 stores Home Depot is letting customers use their PayPal accounts to pay at the register. (Source digitaltransactions.net)

The Winn-Dixie and Bi-Lo merger is moving forward with integration teams named & Winn-Dixie's President saying he'll resign once the merger is complete. They've created functional integration planning teams and it's expected to close within 60-120 days. (Source supermarketnews.com)

Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that police must get a search warrant before using GPS technology to track criminal suspects. The Court ruled that the installation of a GPS device, and its use to monitor the vehicle’s movements, constitutes a search, meaning that a warrant is required. The American Civil Liberties Union declares this an "important victory for privacy." This "is a land mark ruling in applying the Fourth Amendment's protections to advances in surveillance technology", according to one Washington attorney. Some were hoping for a deeper dive by the Supreme Court that would also address other new technologies such as facial recognition. However this is a major blow for law enforcement and sends a warning to the private law enforcement community as well. (Source suntimes.com)

Dallas trafficker of counterfeit merchandise gets 18 months in federal prison Also ordered to pay $136,397 in restitution. The 40 yr-old suspect and his girlfriend operated AnteUp Sales which distributed counterfeit merchandise to online stores and sold directly online as well. The feds raided their home and found $9,400 in cash and 33 boxes containing 661 pieces of counterfeit apparel and jewelry. He admitted that he was not authorized by trademark holders to sell or distribute any of it. (Source nbcdfw.com)

LA ringleader of international identity theft ring gets 40 months in federal prison. The suspect was arrested in the Fed's round up of 100 suspects during "Operation Phish Phry" a multi-national effort to stop a 100 member gang that had Egypt-based hackers that would send out bogus emails that looked like they came from banks, tricking victims into entering their passwords. Runners in the U.S. would then set up bank accounts where the funds stolen from the compromised accounts could be transferred and withdrawn. The investigation brought in the largest number of defendants ever charged in a cybercrime case, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. (Source scpr.org)

WOW - Anonymous goes one step further and hacks the U.S. federal gov't's online security website OnGuardOnline.gov to protest the SOPA and PIPA legislation. They also threatened to dump emails, passwords, bank accounts, and other information from the hacked websites. "We are sitting on hundreds of rooted servers getting ready to drop all your mysql dumps and mail spools," the Anonymous-affiliated hacker group said. Meanwhile in Poland they also hacked that Gov't's webs sites to protest their signing of the international Act against online piracy that many say goes to far as well. (Source csoonline.com)

According to The Street, 5 million retailers have filed an anti-trust lawsuit against Visa, MasterCard and 13 other large banks, over the 2 percent interchange fees they charge retailers on credit card transactions. The outcome could cost the defendants billions of dollars and force them to lower the fees. The suit argues that the banks, Visa and MasterCard have illegally colluded to charge fees for credit card transactions that are far higher than an open, competitive market would dictate they should be. (Source progessivegrocer.com)

US counterfeit drug seizures up 200 per cent in 2011 Seizures of counterfeit pharmaceuticals by US customs tripled in 2011 compared to the previous year, with a domestic value of $16.8m, some $11m higher than in 2010. Overall, pharmaceuticals were in third place behind consumer electronics (with $39m-worth of seizures) and footwear ($26m), just ahead of optical media ($15.6m) and clothing ($14.7m). Fake medicines accounted for 1,239 seizures by customs, 28% of the total number of cases in the consumer safety and critical technology category, and 9% of the 24,792 seizures in total. (Source securingpharma.com)

Splinter group of Anonymous hacks T-Mobile and releases 80 T-Mobile employees names, emails, phone numbers, and passwords. Most of the T-Mobile employees have the same password, 112112 – TeaMp0isoN professed that the company's weak password management motivated its action. The group also claimed it acted out of displeasure with the company's support of "the Big Brother Patriot Act law." (Source scmagazine.com)

Coach Q2 reports North American same store sales up 8.8% with revenue up 15%
Tuesday Morning Q2 reported revenue down 2.2%