Shoplifting Surges 5% in NYC
NYC shoplifting soars with over 21K complaints lodged so far this year - causing CVS, Walgreens to close up shops
New York City is losing drugstores as retail theft continues to surge. Gotham has logged 21,578 shoplifting complaints this year through May 12, up 5% from the 20,552 thefts during the same period last year. Manhattan has seen 8,896 incidents of retail theft alone.

Crime is so rampant, national chains like Target, CVS and Walgreens are closing locations and tempering expansion plans. Target announced at the end of last year the closure of nine stores across four states, including one in Harlem, due to theft.

"We cannot continue operating these stores because theft and organized retail crime are threatening the safety of our team and guests, and contributing to unsustainable business performance," the company said.

Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD sergeant and an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said part of the problem was that politicians shrugged off retail theft instead of targeting it.

Retail theft, which the NYPD only recently added to its crime-tracking CompStat reports, has nearly doubled in the city in the last six years. The number of incidents in Gotham steadily climbed from 32,254 complaints in 2017 to 37,922 incidents in 2019, before falling during the height of COVID-19 in 2020. From 2021 to 2023 citywide complaints increased again from 43,892 to 59,137, the data indicate.

The climate has made it tough for big drugstores already in the midst of downsizing. In the Big Apple, locations are shuttering, with drug store companies forgoing some leases upon their expiration and putting other spaces up for sublease.

In Manhattan, five former CVS outposts are on the market, according to broker Joanne Podell, who is handling the leasing of the spaces. Walgreens has 17 former stores on the market in Manhattan, per a list from real estate firms JLL and SRS.  nypost.com
 

Anti-Crime or Pro-Union?
OPINION: The Real Reason for Self-Checkout Bans

It isn't about stopping crime-it's about protecting a favored constituency's jobs.

One group of progressive California lawmakers have proposed banning self-checkout machines from stores in the name of fighting crime. In reality, this "anti-crime" bill is nothing more than naked protectionism for union jobs.

The proposed legislation would prohibit groceries and other retail stores from using self-checkout machines unless a host of conditions are met. These include having at least one staffed employee for every two self-checkout machines (and the employee must be exempt from any other duties), only permitting the machines to be used by shoppers with 10 items or fewer, and ensuring at least one regular cashier lane is also available at all times.

To underscore her point, Smallwood-Cuevas cites a study suggesting that retail theft is up to 16 times more likely to occur at self-checkout machines than at traditional registers, leading to an estimated $10 billion in annual losses for retailers.

A closer look at the fine print of the bill, however, reveals the true intent behind it. The legislation mandates that any store seeking to install self-checkout machines must first produce a study analyzing, among other things, the number of employees "whose duties would be affected by the workplace technology," as well as the "total amount of salaries and benefits that would be eliminated as a result of the workplace technology." The study must then be provided to employees potentially impacted by the technology (or their collective bargaining representatives) and posted "in a location accessible to employees and customers."

Were this a game of poker, this mandated study would be the tell: Smallwood-Cuevas and her fellow progressives are trying to tuck a pro-union jobs bill inside the Trojan horse of crime prevention.

Efforts to limit self-checkout in other blue states provide corroborating evidence, such as a proposed anti-self-checkout ballot initiative in Oregon that labor interests tried to get on the 2020 ballot, explicitly positioned as a pro-union jobs measure.  reason.com

   RELATED: Stop pretending self-checkout ban is about retail theft


Deterring Shoppers Instead of Criminals?
Shoppers deterred as retailers lock away more items to prevent shoplifting

Suburban shoppers say they have encountered more items behind locked glass cases.

There's debate among experts about whether the theft prevention tactics are warranted at a time when it's hard to parse whether retail theft is actually on the rise. There's little transparency from companies about how they determine which items are locked. CVS and Walgreens spokespeople told The Inquirer that they use data to drive these decisions but declined to provide numbers.

Among consumers, however, The Philadelphia Inquirer found consensus: The contraptions are an inconvenience, one that is often just another reason to buy those products online. "You just don't want the shopping trip to have that kind of friction," one shopper said.

In-person retailers are "already facing these online pressures," he added. By locking up so many items, companies are "making it harder for themselves" to keep customers loyal.

Retailers say locked cases are 'a measure of last resort'

Retailers say it's a deterrence strategy necessary to combat theft, some perpetrated by organized rings that then sell the stolen goods online. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner earlier this year launched a task force to go after repeat offenders and organizations, noting a 27% rise in reported retail theft in the city between 2022 and 2023.

Retailers risk driving more consumers to Amazon, other online stores

From a business perspective, it's unclear whether the locking-up of merchandise has been effective since large retailers do not publicly share data specifically on theft. More than 70% of shoppers said in a national Harris Poll survey that theft deterrents, including locked cases, made them less likely to shop at stores in person, Fast Company reported in November. dallasnews.com

   RELATED: Product lockups driving customers away?


Cargo Theft Surges Over Memorial Day Weekends
Memorial Day Weekend Theft Trends Infographic and Security Tips
JERSEY CITY, N.J., May 16, 2024 - Supply chain professionals should be on high alert this upcoming Memorial Day weekend because cargo thieves will seek to leverage extended business closures. CargoNet, a Verisk business, reviewed theft data from 2019 to 2023 for the Thursday prior to Memorial Day to the Wednesday after to help supply chain professionals mitigate theft. There were 146 events reported with an average of 29 events per year. The stolen cargo in each event was worth an average of $264,016 - due in part to 3 thefts that exceeded $1 million in property stolen.

The data from the past five years shows a significant rising trend in theft events, with 16 events in 2022, increasing to 40 events in 2023. Seventeen percent of recorded thefts occurred on Friday and a significant number of thefts also occurred on Wednesday (15%) and Tuesday (15%). Food and beverage items were the most stolen (24 incidents) and cargo thieves targeted a wide range of products in this category. Household items were the second most targeted commodity with 23 incidents and Electronics had 18 reported incidents.

CargoNet has been tracking a sharp rise in highly technical shipment misdirection fraud schemes across the United States. Fictitious pickup and fraud complaints have reached record-breaking numbers. Geographically, California (43 incidents) remains the most at-risk state and has nearly double the reported incidents from the second most reported state (Texas at 22 incidents). Most of the misdirection fraud has taken place in California, but some shipments have shipped from other states and have been misdirected to California.

Given these trends, it is crucial for supply chain stakeholders to enhance security measures, particularly in the identified high-risk states and locations, and for the most targeted commodity categories. Industry professionals should be on high alert for unauthorized attempts to misdirect shipments from the intended receiver. cargonet.com

Drone Crime-Fighters?
NYPD to start using drones as 'first responders' on 911 calls, shooting investigations

Drones will soon be accompanying cops on shooting investigations and other 911 calls throughout the city, NYPD officials said.

A new Drone as First Responder pilot program will be in effect in coming months, beginning with five NYPD police precincts, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Operations Kaz Daughtry announced at a hearing before the House Committee on Homeland Security.

"The plan, to be rolled out in the coming months, is to deploy these drones in response to certain 911 calls for service," Daughtry told the committee on Thursday.

Three of the precincts participating in the program are in Brooklyn, Daughtry said. A fourth is in the Bronx and the fifth covers Central Park. The precincts were chosen "based on recent crime trends," he explained.

The drones are expected to be deployed to shootings in their precincts and respond to ShotSpotter alerts from a ring of microphones in the area designed to detect gunfire, the NYPD said.

Drone use by the NYPD jumped more than 400% last year from 2022, but Daughtry said they can't be used for "warrantless surveillance" as well as "traffic enforcement or immobilizing vehicles of suspects."

The drones can't be used on routine patrols either, although it was not clear how the new pilot program will affect that rule. nydailynews.com


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Retail is Jumping on the AI Bandwagon
IBM: CPG, retail CEOs take generative AI seriously
A new survey of top executives indicates widespread interest in generative AI, although obstacles to implementation are common.

Sixty-two percent of surveyed CPG chief executives and 58% of surveyed retail CEOs said that competitive advantage will depend on who has the most advanced generative AI, according to the latest annual IBM CEO Study. This is up from 59% of CPG  chiefs and 42% of retail CEOs who responded to the 2023 survey.

In other findings, 63% of retail and CPG respondents are pushing their organization to adopt generative AI more quickly than some retail and consumer products employees are comfortable with. Also, three-quarters of all surveyed CEOs say trusted AI is impossible without effective AI governance. But only 43% of CPG and retail CEOs say they have good AI governance in place.

Looking at combined retail and CPG executive responses to questions about generative AI, the survey also revealed:

• Close to seven-in-10 (68%) retail and CPG respondents say their organization must take advantage of technologies that are changing faster than people can adapt.

• Almost two-thirds (65%) of retail and CPG respondents say they will take more risk than the competition to maintain competitive edge, with 45% of these respondents agreeing that the risk of falling behind is driving them to invest in some technologies before they have a clear understanding of the value. And 63% are pushing their organization to adopt generative AI more quickly than some retail and consumer products employees are comfortable with.

• While 58% of retail and CPG respondents have not yet assessed the impact on their employees, 52% are hiring for generative AI-related roles that didn't exist in 2023. chainstoreage.com


CIA's 'Secure by Design' Push Falling Flat?
Unsafe software development practices persist, despite CISA's push

The industry isn't making sufficient progress in cleaning up code despite recurring efforts from the agency to eliminate entire classes of vulnerabilities.

Federal cyber authorities say it's time for software vendors to "class up the joint" by eliminating entire classes of defects, coding errors and vulnerabilities from their products.

Software defects are a recurring problem the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency highlights when authorities determine vendors could have prevented attacks by fixing these errors from the outset.

"What's especially noteworthy is that for most of these classes of defect, we have known of ways to prevent them at scale for years, and even decades," CISA Senior Technical Advisors Bob Lord and Jack Cable, and Senior Advisor Lauren Zabierek said Monday in a blog post.

The pressure CISA is putting on software vendors to fix these mistakes in the software development process is broad and consistent with the agency's effort to shift the burden of security responsibility from customers to vendors.

But some cybersecurity experts expect the public pressure campaign to fall flat. cybersecuritydive.com


DocuSign Phishing Attacks
Hackers Use Fake DocuSign Templates to Scam Organizations
A surge in phishing attacks that use emails appearing to be from DocuSign is being fueled by a Russian dark web marketplace that has a wide range of take templates and login credentials.

Abnormal Security saw a "concerning uptick" of such emails peppering some of its customers over the past month and began looking for the source of the problem, according to Daniel Kelley, a threat researcher with the cybersecurity company.

"These fraudulent emails, meticulously designed to mimic legitimate document signing requests, lure unsuspecting recipients into clicking malicious links or divulging sensitive information," Kelley wrote in a report. "The recent rise in these attacks can be attributed to several factors, including the widespread adoption of the platform across various industries, its trusted reputation, and, most significantly, the increasing sophistication of cybercriminal tactics."

In this case, the Abnormal researchers took the information from one of the attacks on a customer and searched for it on underground forums and networks. Eventually, the search led them to the Russian marketplace, where they found an identical DocuSign template. securityboulevard.com


SEC requires financial firms to disclose data breaches within 30 days
 
Remote-access tools the intrusion point to blame for most ransomware attacks

The share of ecommerce sales rose to 15.9%, the highest since the lockdown miracle of Q2 2020, as ecommerce continues to eat an ever-bigger slice of the retail pie: