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$19k worth of stolen radios found on eBay

A former security guard at Hiram G. Andrews Center in Upper Yoder Township will appear in Cambria County court, accused of stealing $19,000 worth of portable radios and other devices from the education facility, authorities said.

Police allege that Varner stole 13 Motorola digital radios - along with chargers, batteries, microphones and other accessories - from a storage room between January and May.

Some of the stolen items later turned up on eBay. Police said they obtained a search warrant for the eBay account and tracked the seller to a business in Ebensburg. Varner allegedly sold the items to the business, which later resold some of the items on eBay. Read more

For further information on PROACT, email inquiries to PROACT@eBay.com.

Back-To-School:
What That Means For Your Loss Prevention

By Patrick O'Leary, Vice President & General Manager, Nedap Retail

"Back to School" means big business for any retailer from electronics to office supplies as well as shoes, backpacks and apparel. The average family with school-aged children is planning to spend $684.79 on electronics, apparel and other school needs this year, according to NRF's Back-to-School Spending Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics. For families with college kids, this number is even higher.

So, inventory is high, the crowds are large and the opportunity for thieves even bigger. Some even call the months of July, August, and September the "super shoplift season."

With school starting anywhere from the middle of August to mid-September, businesses are busy running special sales. While last year most back-to-school shoppers took more time to prepare, the survey indicates that this year 37% of the back-to-college shoppers are planning to procrastinate until 3-4 weeks before school start this year. Families with school-age children are waiting even longer to buy supplies. This means more customers in the store at the same time.

However, whenever there are significant sales and many customers, there are also many opportunities for shoplifting and employee theft. Here are some actionable tips how you can prepare your business from a loss prevention standpoint:

Seize Every Opportunity To Remind Employees Of Your Shoplifting Policies
Schedule store-wide or departmental meetings before the rush begins to remind every single employee of your policy towards shoplifting. If you don't have a policy regulating how each member of your organization should conduct themselves when facing a shoplifting or fraud situation, you should develop one as quickly as possible.

It should outline who is authorized to approach suspected thieves, what the protocol is for your security guards, and how you will deal with employee theft and sweethearting. If you have an EAS systems in place that does not automatically monitor its status, include a daily testing protocol as well.

Consider Increasing Your Tagging Levels
Most retailers that are using RF-based EAS solutions have a low tagging level of 20-40% of their high-value and most likely-to-be-stolen merchandise. However, by increasing the number of products that have a security label on them will help deter thieves as well as make your store overall more safe.

Read More Here

Business Groups Take Up Fight To Amend Calif. Privacy Law
More than three dozen business groups from the tech, retail, health, banking and other sectors are pushing California lawmakers working on making "technical" changes to a hastily enacted landmark privacy law to address some of the more "unworkable" aspects of the statute and to extend the compliance deadline. 

However, given that the bill was rushed through the California legislature in less than a week to prevent a more stringent privacy initiative from appearing on the November election ballot, it's widely believed that the requirements will be tweaked before the law is slated to take effect in January 2020. 

California lawmakers began the amendment process almost immediately by introducing Senate Bill 1121, a "cleanup" bill that is meant to make "a variety of technical corrections" to the enacted law. In an Aug. 6 letter sent to Sen. Bill Dodd, who is sponsoring the bill, a diverse group of stakeholders including the California Chamber of Commerce, Association of National Advertisers, California Bankers Association and Retail Industry Leaders Association requested to be included in the amendment process and detailed their suggestions for fixing both drafting errors and "aspects of this bill that would be unworkable and that would result in negative consequences unintended by the authors."

"It is important to fix as many of these problems as soon as possible," the groups wrote in their letter. "The stakes are too high to delay any further - for consumers, businesses, the Attorney General, and the economy." law360.com

Weaponized AI and facial recognition enter the hacking world
Your face could trigger a DeepLocker AI-powered malware attack or be used by Social Mapper to track you across social media sites.

Meet Social Mapper, a facial recognition tool that searches for targets across numerous social networks, and the highly evasive and highly targeted AI-powered malware DeepLocker.

Open-source Social Mapper face recognition tool

The open-source intelligence-gathering tool Social Mapper uses facial recognition to automatically search for targets across eight social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, the Russian social networking service VKontakte, and the Chinese social networking sites Weibo and Douban.

Social Mapper was developed by Trustwave's Jacob Wilkins to help pen testers and red teamers with social engineering attacks. Instead of manually searching social media sites for name and pictures, Social Mapper makes it possible to automate such scans "on a mass scale with hundreds or thousands of individuals."

AI-powered DeepLocker malware attacks

If everyday malware is not considered evasive enough, then think about weaponized artificial intelligence (AI) and then meet the new attack tool DeepLocker, which is powered by AI for "highly targeted and evasive attacks."

AI is being used to automatically detect and fight malware, but IBM Research decided to flip that and came up with a game changer - a "highly evasive new breed of malware, which conceals its malicious intent until it reached a specific victim." The researchers explained that DeepLocker "unleashes its malicious action as soon as the AI model identifies the target through indicators like facial recognition, geolocation and voice recognition." csoonline.com

Phishing Confessions from Security Professionals
We Asked 102 Security Professionals 11 Questions about Phishing
The topics covered the gamut: personal experience with phishing, developments making the problem worse, challenges in tackling it, approaches to phishing defense, and more. Some data on survey respondents:

Summary
Nearly 8 in 10 security professionals know someone hit by phishing, often a co-worker. Professionals are particularly concerned about emails that spoof company messages. Yet roughly half their companies don't offer adequate phishing awareness training and about the same percentage take days or months, not minutes, to detect and respond to threats. When making security investments, many companies are driven by fear. Little wonder. *Registration is required csoonline.com

Why Employees are Your Greatest Cyber Risk
BYOD Drives Vulnerability to Hackers - Malware - Data Breaches
A new study has found that nearly two in five workers admitted to clicking on a link or opening an attachment from a sender they did not recognize.

This security slip-up is significant due to the installation of malware on their devices and the harvesting of sensitive corporate data.

Resulting from the societal BYOD (bring your own devices) trend, the Finn Partners Research study shows that more than half of employees (55 percent) are using their personal devices for work, which directly impacts increased vulnerability to hackers, malware and data breaches. In addition, only 26 percent of employees change their login credentials and/or passwords for personal and work applications at least once a month. securitymagazine.com

Millions of businesses vulnerable to fax-based cyber attack
Hackers could exploit security vulnerabilities in fax machines to launch cyber attacks in millions of organisations around the world, researchers warn, underlining the need for cyber resilience.

Detailing the discovery of vulnerabilities in the communication protocols of fax machines at the Defcon security conference is Las Vegas, the researchers said a fax number is all an attacker needs to exploit the vulnerabilities to send ransomware, spyware, cryptominers and data stealers or even seize control of a company or home network. 

The vulnerabilities in protocols that were set in the 1980s and have not been updated since allow a hacker to create a specially coded colour jpeg fax image that can have any type of malware coded into the image file. This image is then sent down the phone line to the target fax device. 

It is critical that organisations protect themselves against these possible attacks by updating their fax machines with the latest patches and separating them from other devices on their networks. computerweekly.com

How Technology Can Help Fight Retail Shrink
RFID, computer vision, AI and more are joining the fight against lost inventory

Retailers aren't blind to the issues of retail shrink. Stores have been aware of these problems for years and have adopted a variety of different measures in response, including electronic article surveillance (EAS) and upgraded video cameras. Sephora, for instance, has implemented EAS systems and traded analog cameras for IP cameras with the aim of improving security and offering more robust data to bolster analytics around loss, training and business decisions.

As radio frequency identification tags, computer vision and artificial intelligence begin to enter the realm of retail, many stores are tapping these tools in new ways with the aim to combat retail shrink.

Retailers Keep Track of Inventory with RFID

RFID - which, unlike EAS, allows retailers to keep tabs on individual items by giving them unique identifiers - has become a commonly adopted technology for loss prevention in recent years. In fact, a recent IDC study uncovered that 80 percent of retailers have set aside funds to spend on visibility platforms, such as RFID and Internet of Things devices, and 60 percent already have a visibility platform in place.

Business Matters magazine reports that RFID can be used for security in two ways: access control and protection against theft.

According to the publication: "For access control, RFID devices such as smart cards, fobs and wristbands can be used as electronic keys. As each individual can be given access to different areas, it means that you can control not only who can enter but also where different employees may and may not go."

When it comes to theft, companies can tag stock and equipment, which will alert staff if anyone takes an item outside the building without permission or payment.

Emerging Tech Joins the Battle for Loss Prevention

While tracking technology is becoming commonly used in traditional retail stores, entirely new store formats - such as Amazon Go - are transforming the customer experience, eliminating the need for interaction with cashiers and employing new types of technology that could make it easier to catch shoplifters.

A store prototype in Santa Clara, Calif., for instance, uses AI and cameras to track what customers pick up, then automatically charges them as they leave the store. biztechmagazine.com

FBI Warns of 'Unlimited' ATM Cashout Blitz
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is warning banks that cybercriminals are preparing to carry out a highly choreographed, global fraud scheme known as an "ATM cash-out," in which crooks hack a bank or payment card processor and use cloned cards at cash machines around the world to fraudulently withdraw millions of dollars in just a few hours.

"The FBI has obtained unspecified reporting indicating cyber criminals are planning to conduct a global Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cash-out scheme in the coming days, likely associated with an unknown card issuer breach and commonly referred to as an 'unlimited operation'," reads a confidential alert the FBI shared with banks privately on Friday.

The FBI said unlimited operations compromise a financial institution or payment card processor with malware to access bank customer card information and exploit network access, enabling large scale theft of funds from ATMs. krebsonsecurity.com

Command & Control: SOCLab Operations

Episode 6

Fred Becker, Corporate Director of Loss Prevention, Bloomingdale's
Tom Meehan, Chief Strategy Officer & Chief Information Security Officer, CONTROLTEK USA

In this sixth and final episode of our 2017 "Precision LP Impact" Conference series, learn about the LPRC's Command & Control: Security Operations Center Lab (or SOCLab) Operations.

Fred Becker of Bloomingdales and Tom Meehan, formerly of Bloomingdales and now with CONTROLTEK USA, walk us through the LPRC's SOCLab Innovation Chain plans and how the many ways they're working to support strategic crisis and investigative operations.

This LPNN special series was designed to give you a thorough understanding of the only team-driven LP & AP academic efforts in retail history.

We hope you watch the entire series and learn how an academic approach is helping LP & AP impact the Total Retail Enterprise.

If you would like to learn more about the LPRC or get involved, please visit lpresearch.org.
 

Sponsored By:

Bezos Tells All Candidates - 3 Ways to Work
"You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon.com you can't choose two out of three"
Bezos acknowledges his high standards for employees every year, telling shareholders that "it's not easy to work here."

"Setting the bar high in our approach to hiring has been, and will continue to be, the single most important element of Amazon.com's success."

The New York Times reported in 2015 exactly how bruising the work environment at Amazon could be. Employees were reportedly expected to routinely work late, were encouraged to criticize coworkers' ideas at meetings, and were often found crying at their desks. Amazon disputed many of the claims in the Times investigation, though the newspaper defended its reporting.

NOW WATCH: Jeff Bezos reveals what it's like to build an empire and become the richest man in the world - and why he's willing to spend $1 billion a year to fund the most important mission of his life.

Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, recently sat down with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to talk about the early days of creating Amazon, what he's learned since then, how he funds his rocket company, Blue Origin, and what it's like when the president of the United States is your biggest critic.

The sit-down interview happened in Berlin, where Bezos received the Axel Springer Award 2018 for innovation, this past April. businessinsider.com

Editor's Note: Hundreds of people protested during Bezos' award presentation, over the company's treatment of workers and the company's tax policies. German unions have been pushing for higher pay for the thousands of workers and better labor conditions. Germany is Amazon's second biggest market behind the U.S. with $17B in sales. bloomberg.com

Algorithms feeding unsustainable price cuts online
While consumers and sellers alike may think that Amazon itself is driving price competition, it's now often third-party marketplace sellers, on Amazon and Walmart, that initiate price-based skirmishes, according to the report. Dynamic pricing algorithms have enabled retailers to detect every online price change, including temporary promotions, and that's, "leading to race-to-the-bottom behavior and permanent drops in Average Selling Price," Profitero said.

Brands and retailers are also getting caught up in price-matching schemes that trigger price declines based not only on shelf prices but also "irregular" prices like rollbacks, coupons, combos like buy one get one (which get matched on a per unit basis) and special in-cart prices. Furthermore, some third-party sellers are offering low prices on merchandise from liquidation channels or gray markets, without regard for brand equity, pricing strategies or economics - yet those prices are still being matched, Profitero warned.

And while Amazon is keen to meet or beat Walmart's prices, some items priced too low could end up in Amazon's crosshairs, according to the report. Amazon has a method of cutting off sales of items priced too low to be profitably shipped, labeled "CRaP" or "Can't Realize any Profit." retaildive.com

The top-selling categories on Prime Day were .... more than 100 million products
1. Electronics with sales spiking 215% on Prime Day.
2. Home improvement category as sales surged 200%.
3. Beauty sales increased by 186%, pet sales went up by 134%. Grocery sales more than doubled (+108%). chainstoreage.com

Wichita Falls, TX: Former Wichita Falls Police Officer, $300,000 ORC Kingpin sentenced to 10 years
A former Wichita Falls Police officer is heading to prison after pleading guilty to leading a theft ring. 54-year-old Scott Higgins was identified by numerous individuals as the man directing them to steal from steal products from retailers in the Dallas and Wichita Falls area. Investigators discovered that Higgins and his family were selling the stolen goods on eBay and social media. Over the course of one year, the theft ring stole over $300,000 in merchandise. Higgins guilty plea was accepted in July and last week 78th District Judge Barney Fudge sentenced Higgins to 10 years in prison. As part of the plea agreement, charges against Higgins wife, son and daughter were dropped. newstalk1290.com

Union County, NC: Woman involved in Police chase and crash facing more charges; link to $100,000 in merchandise theft from The Home Depot
A woman who crashed in Union County Tuesday after being followed by a police helicopter from Charlotte is now believed to be responsible for even more crimes, according to the Union County Sheriff's Office. Amanda Sawyer, 30, was facing 21 charges in connection with the pursuit including child abuse and failing to secure children in a car seat. Now, she's facing even more charges after deputies say multiple stolen items were found in her vehicle. Investigators say unopened boxes of DeWalt power tools and a Milwaukee M18 fuel combo kit were inside the vehicle. They say Sawyer stole the items, worth more than $5,000, from Home Depot stores in High Point and Burlington. A Corporate Investigator with The Home Depot said Sawyer stole $100,000 from the home improvement stores over the past year.

Detectives also believe Sawyer opened a fraudulent account using a stolen identity and used the credit card to buy nearly $1,500 in merchandise from a Walmart in Indian Trail in July. The CMPD Aviation Unit began following Sawyer's vehicle shortly before 4 p.m. Tuesday. Sawyer then went into Union County before crashing into another vehicle at the intersection of U.S. 74 and Dickerson Boulevard in Monroe. North Carolina State Highway Patrol troopers, who started pursuing Sawyer once she reached Union County, said two children were in the car at the time. wbtv.com

Upper Marlboro, Maryland, Man & ID Fraud Gang Member Gets 2 Yrs & $60k Restitution Order
Victor Sesay, age 38, and his two codefendants used the cards to acquire high dollar credit and gift cards from multiple stores in South Dakota and other locations across the Midwest. As a result of the theft scheme, local credit unions, as well as other FDIC insured banks across the Midwest, incurred approximately $60,000 in financial losses. justice.gov

Home Depot employee charged with $3,000 theft in July incident
A Home Depot employee accused of helping a customer leave with nearly $3,000 worth of merchandise last month has been charged with theft. Authorities said officers were called to the store on July 14 after store managers confronted Dawn Anne Ruhs. According to the police report, Ruhs began a sales transaction for a customer with a cart full of merchandise but voided the transaction before payment was received. The 45-year-old was seen on security video taking the merchandise, which included a riding lawn mower, out of the store with the customer, the report states. theeagle.com

Roseville, CA: Shoplifters try their luck at two Ulta Beauty stores, stealing over $1,000 in merchandise
Two alleged shoplifters who made off Tuesday with about $1,000 in products after pepper spraying an employee at an Ulta Beauty store in Lincoln were arrested in connection with a similar crime about an hour later in Roseville. Around 6 p.m., police said that Misty Lanelle Wilson, 19, and Troy Joseph Turnage, 20, entered the Ulta Beauty at Ferrari Ranch Road, put merchandise into a grocery bag and attempted to leave without paying for the items. As they were leaving, one of the suspects sprayed the employee, who was standing near the exit, police said. Wilson and Turnage fled the scene in a vehicle before police arrived.But it wouldn't be long before police would soon get a tip on their two suspects' whereabouts. The Roseville Police Department informed Lincoln Police at about 7:30 p.m. that two individuals had been arrested in connection with a similar robbery in their city. sacbee.com

Myrtle Beach, SC: Woman wanted in connection to Hollister store Robbery at Coastal Grand Mall
A woman is still wanted Saturday for her role in a late July strong armed robbery at a store in the Coastal Grand Mall. According to police, Crystal Renee Smith, 31, was one of three women involved in a July 21 robbery at the Hollister store inside the mall. The police report says Smith and the two other women entered the store and began attempting to remove and hide security tags from certain items of clothing. The group then allegedly assaulted a responding store employee and stole her phone in the process. The report continues to say a pair of pliers that were used to remove the security tags were recovered from the scene. wmbfnews.com

Riverhead, NY: Juvenile male arrested for $782 theft from Stop & Shop; pulled Stun Gun on Loss Prevention

Pensacola, FL: Two Molino Men Arrested For Walmart $600 Theft, One Had A Loaded Gun And Spice
 

Fake ATF Agent threatened to kill Jewelry Store owner in home invasion; sentenced to 45 years

Ballston Spa, NY: Woman who was part of a group that committed several knifepoint Armed Robberies in Saratoga County, sentenced to 6 months in jail and 5 years on probation

Greenbelt, MD: Lanham Man Sentenced to 15 Years in Federal Prison for Armed Robberies

Syracuse, N.Y., Man Gets 1 Yr Fed. Prison & $3.5M Fine For Manufacturing & Selling Contraband Cigarettes

Submit Your New Hires/Promotions or New Position

Featured Job Spotlights

	Vice President, Asset Protection Columbus, OH Oversees and directs all Asset Protection related functions for a Corporate Office, multi-state distribution centers and large retail store network. Responsible for enterprise direction and strategy as it pertains to Asset Protection with a goal of minimizing shrink, reducing loss and maximizing security and associate safety...
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	Director of North America Digital Risk & Control Beaverton, OR As the Director of North America Digital Risk & Control, you will provide leadership for payment risk mitigation in our digital business including fraud risk management. You will be responsible for ensuring our resources and capabilities are properly aligned to the execution of key priorities, as you develop and implement ecommerce risk management strategies to appropriate tolerance levels based on advanced data analytics and trends...
	Director of Data Privacy and Security, Legal Los Angeles, California As Netflix continues to grow and expand, we are looking for a talented team member to join the Data Privacy and Security Legal team to provide support on privacy and data security compliance matters. The position will report to the Global Director of Data Privacy and Security, and will work in an ongoing and collaborative way with relevant Legal, Security and Public Policy groups in carrying out her or his responsibilities...
	Director, Risk Management and Safety Los Angeles, CA To protect the company's global assets and property from risk of loss via the purchase of insurance and by implementing a global risk management program in the most cost efficient and effective manner...
	Financial Analyst (Internal Fraud) Anaheim, CA This role is responsible for investigating internal fraud and Cast Privilege abuse at the Disneyland Resort, across all lines of business including but not limited to: merchandise, food & beverage, rooms, ticketing, and employee privileges. Specific investigative tasks will vary but may include: reviewing exception reporting to identify potential fraud trends, conducting in-depth point-of-sale research, reviewing camera surveillance, performing integrity shops and observations, interviewing employees, representing the Company at grievances and unemployment hearings, and partnering with law enforcement as needed...
	Regional Loss Prevention Manager Pacific Northwest Job responsibilities include, but are not limited to the following: ● Conducts internal investigations related to theft, business abuse, and safety violations by conducting interviews, determining course of action, and writing reports. ● Formal interview training, i.e. Wicklander-Zulawski or Reid Techniques...

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