9/15/20

LP, AP & IT Security's #1 News Source

Top Trump health appointee warns of armed insurrection after election
A top communications official for the administration's coronavirus response urged President Trump's supporters to prepare for an armed insurrection after a contested election and accused government scientists of "sedition" in a Facebook Live chat that he described in detail to The Washington Post on Monday.

Michael Caputo, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services, which is overseeing the coronavirus response, leveled the accusations and promoted other conspiracy theories in a Facebook Live event first reported by the New York Times. Caputo confirmed the authenticity of the video in comments he made to The Post. washingtonpost.com

Protests in Lancaster, PA
Protests erupt after police shooting of Ricardo Munoz caught on body cam

Mayor says 'we need help' with mental health care

After a night of protests over the fatal shooting of a Latino man by police Sunday, city officials in Lancaster, Pa., addressed the issue Monday and called for a different, "more human" response to emergency situations that involve mental health.

Mayor Danene Sorace said in a news conference Monday that there is a "clear need" for a de-escalation response from law enforcement, as well as an expansion of state-funded mental health care - and other social services - to prevent fatal incidents like Sunday night's, and she argued that recent state budget cuts have undermined these efforts. washingtonpost.com

Cities Were Filled With Mass Protests in the Summer of 2020.
They Are Different Now

Law-enforcement officials say presence of armed fringe groups from both sides of political spectrum raises prospect of a new wave of violence

Months of mass protests have given way to more violent and even deadly demonstrations, driven by extremists who are flocking to them.

Law-enforcement officials say they are alarmed by the presence of armed fringe groups from both sides of the political spectrum at the protests and say the deadly shootings late last month in Kenosha, Wis., and Portland, Ore., raise the prospect of a new wave of political violence.

Forces ratcheting up the intensity at rallies include outrage expressed by many about the treatment of Black Americans by police, divisions over pandemic restrictions, an economic downturn that left millions of Americans jobless and a contentious national election, current and former law-enforcement officials say. Police have struggled to stop the violence and have faced criticism for allowing protests to descend into chaos, while more armed fringe groups have been drawn to the fray, experts say.

"This has always been the nightmare scenario," said Colin Clarke, a researcher at the Soufan Center, a nonpartisan group that tracks extremism. "I'm frankly surprised it's taken this long for people to be shot and killed."

As protests over police brutality grew more intense this summer, police in some cities were told to avoid using force unless they absolutely had to, said Frank Straub, a director at the Police Foundation and a former Spokane, Washington police chief. wsj.com

Hurricane Sally Live Updates: Gulf Coast Could See Up to 30 Inches of Rain
Officials urged people to prepare for "life-threatening" flash floods, torrential rains and strong winds. "This is the real deal," Mississippi's governor said.

As Hurricane Sally churned slowly over the Gulf Coast early Tuesday morning, creeping along at just 2 miles per hour as it approached the coast, officials warned residents from Mississippi to Florida to prepare for possibly devastating flooding with the storm surge and heavy rain expected to build in intensity over the next 36 hours.

A hurricane warning remained in effect for an area stretching eastward from the mouth of the Pearl River on the Louisiana-Mississippi border to Navarre, near the tip of the Florida panhandle - a distance of about 200 miles that includes Mississippi's and Alabama's entire coastlines. nytimes.com

Security company GardaWorld reveals it's trying to buy G4S for $3.9B
GardaWorld, the world's largest privately owned security company, went public Monday with a 3 billion-pound ($3.9 billion) offer for G4S, saying its London-based rival has rejected or ignored three previous approaches.

Montreal-based GardaWorld says it decided to publicize its bid of 190 pence a share - a 30% premium to G4S's closing price on Friday - to pressure the firm into talks.

London-based G4S responded by saying the bid "significantly undervalues the company and its prospects.″ "Shareholders are strongly advised to take absolutely no action in relation to the new proposal,″ the company said.

G4S, which employs more than 500,000 people in 85 countries, said its financial performance has been "particularly resilient" since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company in July posted underlying first-half earnings of 97 million pounds, the same as for the year-earlier period. Revenue fell 1.5% to 3.35 billion pounds. abcnews.com

UK: ACS calls for sentencing guidelines to do more to recognize shopworker violence
The Association of Convenience Stores is calling for sentencing guidelines to do more to address violence against shopworkers, and for penalties to better reflect both the physical and psychological impact on victims.

In its submission to the Sentencing Council's consultation on revised guidelines for assault offences, ACS calls for:

● Intention to cause fear of serious harm (including disease transmission) to be explicitly referenced as a higher culpability factor increasing offence seriousness, given the increase in coughing and spitting offences related to Covid-19

● The sentencing guidelines for assaults must better account for violence against shopworkers and the psychological impacts of these offences, to ensure offenders receive appropriate sanctions and to deter repeat offending

● The barriers to the use of 'serving the public' as an aggravating factor by magistrates must be understood and resolved to determine whether clearer language is required.

Figures from the 2020 ACS Crime Report show that there have been over 50,000 incidents of violence, abuse and threats towards people working in the convenience sector, including almost 10,000 incidents where a weapon was involved. Additionally, during lockdown, 40% of retailers in the convenience sector reported that there had been an increase in violence and abuse in stores, with many facing Covid-19 related abuse such as coughing and spitting. talkingretail.com

Kent, England: C-store Introduces Body-Worn Cameras to Protect Staff
Nye said: "It took a while for the staff to get used to the cameras because they stick out a bit, but it's been fine, it makes them feel safer. At the moment they aren't recording, we are just using them as a deterrent, but if they feel something is going to happen they are easy to switch on."

She added: "The cameras cost £199 each from Amazon - we just got two to test, but we will probably buy more, a slightly cheaper version. I would 100% recommend body-worm cameras to all retailers." talkingretail.com

Ignoring the China Threat - Money Means More?
GNC Scraps Auction, Going Ahead With Sale to China's Harbin

Proceeding amid call from Sen. Marco Rubio for national-security probe

GNC is moving ahead with a sale to China's Harbin Pharmaceutical Group Co. after no other offers emerged and canceling the bankruptcy auction, even as the deal drew scrutiny from Sen. Marco Rubio.

The senator argued that through the deal, the Chinese government could gain access to sensitive health data about U.S. consumers. The senator has focused on the potential threat that Chinese acquisitions of U.S. companies pose to national security.

In 2018, Congress ordered Cfius to take a closer look at acquisitions that could put personal data at risk and the panel made no objections. wsj.com

16 Retailers That Are Actually Opening More Stores Right Now


Quarterly Results
Alimentation Couche-Tard Q1 merchandise comp's up 7.7%, in U.S., 19.9% in Canada, 3.4% in Europe, fuel comp's down 21.2% in U.S., down 25.6% in Canada, down 12.4% in Europe

 

Bipartisan Bill Looks to Create Secure Digital Identities

Legislation Seeks to Address ID Theft and Fraud Stemming From Breaches

A bipartisan bill introduced Friday in the House of Representatives looks to take some initial steps in creating nation-wide digital identity standards that attempt to address a range of security issues, including theft and fraud stemming from data breaches.

The bill, "Improving Digital Identity Act of 2020," was introduced by Rep. Bill Foster, D-Ill., who serves on the House Financial Services Committee and has previously held hearings about using emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, to improve identity and make it more secure (see: Congress Hears Ideas for Battling ID Theft).

The bill would create an interagency task force composed of federal, state and local agencies that would develop uniform standards for digital identities that would offer more security and privacy protections for individuals. It also calls for creating new verification tools that public and private organizations could use. govinfosecurity.com


U.S. Interconnected E-Commerce Fraud Networks
U.S. Leads the World in Volume of Attacks

The LexisNexis Risk Solutions Cybercrime Report Reveals New Opportunities and Risks for the U.S. and Canada in Digital Channels During Global Pandemic

Findings from the first half of 2020 highlight overall decline in human-initiated attacks, growth in bot attacks targeting financial services organizations.

LexisNexis® Risk Solutions today released its biannual Cybercrime Report, which tracks global cybercrime activity from January through June 2020. The report dives deep into how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the global digital economy, regional economies, industries, businesses and consumer behavior. The period has seen strong transaction volume growth compared to 2019 but an overall decline in global attack volume. This is likely linked to growth in genuine customer activity due to changing consumer habits.

The LexisNexis Risk Solutions Cybercrime Report analyzes data from more than 22.5 billion transactions processed by the LexisNexis® Digital Identity Network®, a 37% growth year over year. Mobile device transactions also continue to rise, with 66% of all transactions coming from mobile devices in the first half of 2020, up from 20% in early 2015. The Digital Identity Network® also noted an uptick in transactions from new devices and new digital identities. We can attribute this to many new-to-digital consumers moving online to procure goods and services that were no longer available in person or harder to access via a physical store during the pandemic.

The United States (U.S.) and Canada encountered lower overall attack rates in comparison to other global regions from January through June 2020. This is true across both desktop and mobile browser channels. The U.S. does contribute the highest volume of human-initiated and automated bot attacks globally. There are also pockets of attack growth across specific industries and use cases. These include upticks in attack rates targeting all use cases in the media industry, as well as financial services new account creations.

There is a clear pattern of networked fraud recorded across the region, highlighted by large, interconnected e-commerce fraud networks in the U.S. This network saw at least $27.9 million exposed to fraud across five online retailers and one online marketplace. This network alone consisted of 850 devices, 134,000 email addresses and 61,000 telephone numbers.

Download a copy of the LexisNexis Risk Solutions Cybercrime Report, January through June 2020. 

Watch Rebekah Moody, director of fraud and identity at LexisNexis Risk Solutions, share an overview of the latest Cybercrime Report. prnewswire.com


Security Through an Economics Lens: A Guide for CISOs
Security and IT leaders are familiar with the challenge of making trade-off decisions about how and where to invest resources to best manage risks to the organization. Viewing their problems through the lens of economics may help them reprioritize these tricky investment decisions.

Tom Scholtz, research vice president at Gartner, took a deep dive into this idea during a talk at Gartner's Security & Risk Management Summit, taking place online this week. Scholtz argued how concepts such as opportunity cost, core to the study of economics, can prove just as useful in cybersecurity, where it's often tough to determine whether resources are spent properly.

According to Gartner, 82% of businesses will only change their investment portfolio when they update their budgets, whether that's on an annual or biannual basis. Only 18% change their investment priorities throughout the year based on major business changes, Scholtz explained.

"We all know that change doesn't sync up with our budget cycles, and we all know that our executives tend to make decisions based on changes in the business environment," he said. "We need to find ways of understanding how the business makes investment decisions and change decisions ... so that we can react to that as effectively as possible when those changes occur." darkreading.com

Dark Side of AI: How to Make Artificial Intelligence Trustworthy
Security and privacy concerns are the top barriers to adoption of artificial intelligence, and for good reason. Both benign and malicious actors can threaten the performance, fairness, security and privacy of AI models and data.

This isn't something enterprises can ignore as AI becomes more mainstream and promises them an array of benefits. In fact, on the recent Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies, 2020, more than a third of the technologies listed were related to AI.

At the same time, AI also has a dark side that often goes unaddressed, especially since the current machine learning and AI platform market has not come up with consistent nor comprehensive tooling to defend organizations. This means organizations are on their own. What's worse is that according to a Gartner survey, consumers believe that it is the organization using or providing AI that should be accountable when it goes wrong.

It is in every organization's interest to implement security measures that counter threats in order to protect AI investments. Threats and attacks against AI not only compromise AI model security and data security, but also compromise model performance and outcomes. informationweek.com

Big Exposure Most Often Overlooked
More Printers Could Mean Security Problems for Home-Bound Workers
Tricked-out home offices have led to an influx in printers, many of which have not been set up securely, leaving workers and their companies vulnerable.

Remote workers often do not use strong passwords to protect the administrator account and may not have up-to-date firmware on the devices, which leaves the printers as a way into their home network and - using lateral movement through a company's virtual private network - into the corporate network.

At the end of August, a group of researchers sent a print job to a sampling of 50,000 of the 800,000 Internet-connected printers found through search engines such as Shodan.io, resulting in nearly 28,000 printers - or 56% of the discoverable devices - printing out their document, a single-page guide to securing the printer. The experiment of questionable legality led the group to conclude that about 450,000 printers are vulnerable to attack over the Internet.

The threat is not theoretical. darkreading.com

PCI SSC to Host its 2020 Community Meetings Online as Virtual Events
In an unprecedented year, PCI Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) will host its 2020 Community Meetings online, as virtual events, for the first time in the Council's history. The annual North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific Community Meetings offer an opportunity to bring the PCI SSC community together to network with colleagues, share regional insights, and hear important Council updates.

In this interview with Executive Director Lance J. Johnson, we discuss what attendees can expect this year, the key content that will be addressed, and the value of holding these meetings, even in a virtual environment. pcisecuritystandards.org

3 Tips for Setting Safer Passwords

Passwords continue to be a target for hackers. Here are 3 easy tips for setting safer passwords.

1. Use 2-factor authentication when its available.
2. Use longer passwords - the longer the harder to crack.
3. Do not include your name, birthday, or references to other personal details.

West Miami, FL: Stun Gun Wielding Shoplifter Targets West Miami Publix Store
A safety alert and warning about a shoplifter who has been targeting a West Miami Publix supermarket and who has been going to unusual lengths to carry out his crimes. CBS4'S Peter D'Oench has obtained an exclusive cell phone video that West Miami Police said shows the man leaving the store at 1500 S.W. 57th Avenue last Tuesday with stolen items while carrying a stun gun that he uses to scare off anyone who tries to stop him. West Miami Police Major Pete Delgado says he has not encountered a shoplifter like this before who uses a stun gun. He said the thief is seen wearing a face mask while leaving the store with a duffel bag and another bag with $250 worth of stolen meat and laundry detergent. cbslocal.com

NYC: Smash and Grab Burglars hits Tourneau Jewelers for over $100,000
A trio of burglars smashed the front door of the high-end Tourneau Jewelers on Madison Avenue in Manhattan early Monday and then shattered display cases - absconding with an unknown number of pricey timepieces in a matter of two minutes, the NYPD said. The burglars struck around midnight at the store at 510 Madison Ave., smashing open five display cases in a heist that lasted all of two minutes, cops said. The watches range in price from a four figures to $25,000... "If they got away with at least five or six of them, that's probably over $100,000," a police source said. kyrnews.com

Jacksonville Beach, FL: Police arrest 3 women after $5,000 Ulta Beauty store robbery
Police in Jacksonville Beach said more than $5,000 in high-end fragrances were swiped from the shelves inside a Ulta Beauty store. The heist happened at the Ulta on 3rd St. Thursday. The Jacksonville Beach Police Department said the robbery lead to a police chase and the arrest of three women. Police said they charged Shatreveya Robinson, Slivya Thomas, and Myra Curry in connection with the incident. Jacksonville Beach Police have at least three previous cases involving the suspects. wkov.com

Saugus, MA: Walmart reported a male smashed a camera case and put over $2,000 of merchandise in his backpack

Annapolis, MD: Shoplifter Busted and Arrested twice in 45 Mins

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