3SI promoted David Almasi to Vice President of U.S. Retail Sales
Amazon named Mike Aldridge, LPC Senior Program Manager - Seller Investigations
Amazon Web Services named Dustin Diamond Sr. Program Mgr, Global Investigations, Data Centers
American Freight promoted Corey Runt to Senior Mgr - Reporting, Analytics, & Investigations
Apple named Amanda Pritters Head of Retail Security
Belle Tire named Jonathon Burris, LPC Director of Risk Management
Burlington Stores promoted Steve Schwartz, CFI to Asset Protection & Distribution Center Recruiter
CONTROLTEK promoted Tom Meehan to President
CONTROLTEK promoted Brian Gross Chief Operating Officer
Dollar General named Joel Haynes Asset Protection Senior Manager
Guardian Protection promoted Kevin Santelli to Vice President - Commercial & National Accounts Business
Hyatt Hotels Corporation named Mike Nagyhazy Director of Security & Safety
Interface Systems named Jeremy Barlow Security TTU Manager
Northeast Shared Services named Jim Simpson Director of Asset Protection
Ross Stores, Inc. promoted Sarkeis Tomeh to Sr. Area Loss Prevention Manager
Ulta Beauty named Chris Marquez Organized Retail Crime Investigations Manager
Universal Studios Hollywood promoted Jim Tanner to Senior Manager, LP Operations & Surveillance

Keep Up the Momentum to Pass Retail Crime Legislation
NRF: Tell Congress to Take Action to Fight the Retail Crime Surge

Join with the National Retail Federation (NRF) in pushing for congressional action this fall on the retail industry's top two priorities to address organized retail crime and theft.

Taking action only takes one minute - add your voice along with thousands of retail professionals, and tell Congress to act on our top two priorities.

Click here to take action.

NRF's priorities include:

• INFORM Consumers Act (S.936/H.R. 5502): Requires online marketplaces to verify the identity of high-volume third-party sellers to help curb the sale of stolen and counterfeit merchandise. NRF supports inclusion of the INFORM Act in the pending Senate National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) manager's amendment.

• Combatting Organized Retail Crime Act (S.5046/H.R. 9177): Establishes a new Organized Retail Crime Coordination Center that will help federal, state and local law enforcements agencies better coordinate to effectively combat criminal activities. Recently introduced in both chambers of Congress, NRF is advocating for additional cosponsors.

We invite you to share this information widely with your colleagues and networks. Every voice counts.

Get Your LP/AP Executives to Support This Effort

Reach Out to Your Member of Congress Directly

Find Your Representative Here
 

Retail Among Highest-Risk Jobs for Workplace Violence
Increasing violence in malls: the risk of retail work
Violence is seen everywhere, whether it be in grocery stores, at schools, or even in nail salons and offices. Any place can fall victim to violence or significant threats, and affect anyone and everyone. According to the CDC, "Retail work is one of the highest-risk jobs for workplace violence. Violence isn't just hitting, fighting, and shooting. It can also be sexual harassment, rape, bullying, stealing, and verbal abuse."

"Since the start of the pandemic, we saw an increase in violence from guests or customers," said Danny Inalod, a closing team lead at San Bruno's Tanforan's Target. Inalod, a Target employee since 2001, has noticed an increase over the last few years, starting at the end of 2019.

Assault is the fourth leading cause of workplace deaths and falls into four categories: criminal intent, customer and client interaction, and personal along with worker-on-worker relationships. Even if these acts of assault do not lead to a fatal outcome, they are still prevalent in the average day of retail workers and create problems in the workplace.

Combatting the issue

Target is one of few stores that has been able to address the issues with security by hiring and implementing a store-centered security team. However, hiring a store-focused security team is costly and challenging for some stores, leaving them struggling to combat violence. That struggle has employees looking to larger powers, such as the government, to solve the issue.

While Inalod and Smith mentioned long-term options, short-term choices, like Target's practice of locking up high theft items, are what many retail workers are resorting to.

Struggles of security

The issue is not that the security is not doing their jobs, as they are not allowed to attack or restrain anyone physically: "We can't detain them or anything; you just don't want to cause conflict with them further," Ramirez said. "If it is a direct threat to you or anyone, then yeah, you can do something about it, but if it's just a threat, and they're walking away, that's when you call the cops." scotscoop.com

'The Level of Theft is Making Customers Afraid'
'I wish something could be done': Fred Meyer managers, shoppers say theft consuming Everett stores
Employees at Fred Meyer stores in Everett are asking city officials for more help to address organized retail theft. Ron Biley, who shops regularly at the Fred Meyer on Evergreen Way in Everett, said he's witnessed it first-hand.

Fred Meyer managers David Webster and Tyler Stumpf shared their concerns with Everett City Council during Wednesday's meeting. They both said they're out of options, which have included private security, video monitoring devices, and calling law enforcement when incidents occur.

"The level of theft is making our customers afraid," Webster said on Wednesday, claiming his employees have had their cars stolen and vandalized. He also claimed one of his employees was abducted in the parking lot. Everett police could not confirm or deny if these claims were accurate.

Stumpf, a manager at the Fred Meyer on Evergreen Way, told council members about an organized theft ring at his store.

"The drug dealers show up in their cars. They give the users a list of what they need to come in and steal, and they come steal. They leave drug paraphernalia all over the store, whether it's needles or foils from the fentanyl. They also use our restrooms as a place to shoot up or do fentanyl. We have an open-air drug market," Stumpf said on Wednesday. "We just need some help and some support."

This past June, Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced the creation of the statewide Organized Retail Crime Theft Task Force. It focuses on organized crime rings that account for about $70 billion in retail losses nationwide.

Washington retailers lost $2.7 billion to organized retail crime in 2021, according to an analysis by the Retail Industry Leaders Association. kiro7.com

Despite Tough Talk, Crime Rates Similar Under New San Fran DA
Op-Ed: S.F. needs a generational talent to make a difference as D.A. These candidates aren't that
When California voters passed Proposition 47 in 2014, they essentially told cities like San Francisco that we can no longer use jails to warehouse our social ills. Under the measure, most nonviolent crimes can't be charged as felonies, only misdemeanors - meaning that while some minor crimes can result in jail time, taking proactive steps to alleviate the root causes of social decay is the best and only meaningful way to remove it from public sight. That hasn't happened.

Decades of data from the state's tough-on-crime era show that locking people up for poverty and addiction results in racial bias and poor outcomes. But letting chaos reign in the streets clearly isn't working either.

When businesses, tourists and conventions are scared away from downtown by the perception of disorder, it has real economic and social consequences, regardless of what the crime stats say. This reality is propelling policy decisions in ways that aren't being openly acknowledged.

That sounds hopelessly cynical, but all of the candidates for San Francisco district attorney acknowledged to varying degrees that some perception management is needed now - even progressive criminal defense attorney John Hamasaki.

In an interview, he acknowledged the precarity of downtown's economic ecosystem absent immediate intervention. He stressed accountability for repeat offenders while continuing recalled District Attorney Chesa Boudin's work of pursuing alternatives to incarceration for those who commit low-level nonviolent crimes.

Charging and crime rates have been similar under Jenkins to that of Boudin. The major difference between the two camps has been one of tone. Frankly, if that tone helps provide a sense of public calm until the city can ramp up its safety net, we're OK with that.

San Francisco needs wholesale systemic changes and a district attorney willing to say as much. Jenkins, thus far, hasn't. And we're not confident she will if the political winds don't allow for it. sfchronicle.com

Illegal Guns Fueling Chicago's Violence Crisis
In Chicago, handguns turned into high-capacity machine guns fuel deadly violence
Despite a longstanding federal ban on auto sears, and a ban on extended magazines in Chicago and surrounding Cook County, the number of guns with the illegal attachments being seized by the city's police department has surged in the last several years, an investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times, WBEZ and NPR has found.

The investigation found that:

● The number of extended magazines - those with more than 10 rounds - recovered by Chicago police more than doubled from 2018 to last year, up from 459 to 924, records show.

● Chicago police have recovered extended magazines in at least 13 mass shootings since 2018. Eleven of the 13 were in the last two years.

● The number of auto sear-equipped handguns seized by Chicago police skyrocketed from zero in 2018 to 355 last year, leading federal authorities to declare that Chicago has one of the worst switch problems in the country.

● Since 2018, Cook County prosecutions of auto sears and extended magazines - machine-gun prosecutions - increased from six in 2018 to 201 last year.

The issue of guns and their accessories is being hotly debated by lawmakers across the country. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ban on bump stocks, which make a semi-automatic rifle such as an AR-15 fire faster. And in Congress, legislators have been going after so-called ghost guns, which are made privately and can't be traced.

Mass shootings have grown more commonplace in Chicago, and some blame it on the uptick of the makeshift machine guns.  wpr.org

Using Online Platforms to Carry Out Mass Shooting Attacks
6 months after Buffalo mass shooting, videos used by shooter remain on YouTube
In the months leading up to the May 14 massacre at a Buffalo supermarket, accused gunman Payton Gendron turned to YouTube to plot parts of his attack.

One video he watched explained how to remove a lock that prevents semi-automatic rifles from accepting high-capacity magazines. Another video taught civilians how to "win" gun battles through military-style preparation and training.

Like other social media platforms, YouTube has struggled to moderate content related to guns and firearms. Amid a growing epidemic of gun violence in the United States, and under intense political pressure from federal lawmakers, the site has scrambled to crack down on videos that sell firearms or instruct users how to build or modify guns.

But five years after YouTube began ramping up its restrictions on firearms content, many of the videos that informed the accused May 14 shooter - and others like them - remain on the site.

A Buffalo News investigation found two dozen YouTube videos that demonstrate how to make semi-automatic rifles fully automatic, link to blueprints for 3D-printed guns or sell illegal gun accessories and parts - including 11 videos at the heart of a federal weapons trafficking case against the YouTube gun influencer Matthew Hoover.

The News also cataloged dozens of videos that do not violate YouTube's current policies, but that do provide instructions for shooting other people. buffalonews.com

NYPD's Crime Exodus - 9,000 Fewer Officers Since 2001
NYPD officers quitting in record numbers amid growing issue over NYC crime
The size of the NYPD is shrinking at a time when crime has become a major issue in New York City. More than 1,400 NYPD officers have quit their jobs this year, according to the NYPD's Police Benevolent Association.

The number of officers who quit the force has been rising steadily since 2019, according to the Police Pension Fund, and nearly doubled between 2020 and 2021 with 465 officers quitting in 2020 and 888 quitting in 2021. So far this year, 1,426 officers have quit - four times as many compared to 2015.

Lynch said many officers are choosing to go to other police departments which pay more, including the MTA Police, New York State Troopers and to departments in Westchester and on Long Island. In Suffolk County, for example, the PBA said officers make 76% more than NYPD officers.

"What we need to do is what other police departments are doing," Lynch said. "Investing in their police officers."

The chief of the department alluded to the staffing issues in an October 7 press conference on crime statistics. Chief Kenneth Corey said the NYPD has 9,000 fewer officers than it did in 2001, yet officers have been making the same number of "high-quality arrests." For the last several years, the NYPD has had a headcount below the amounted budgeted by the city. The PBA estimates the department is currently short about 1,000 officers. abc7ny.com

Crime Becomes Top Issue Ahead of Midterm Elections
Why Republican attacks on crime have been so devastating for Democrats
With less than two weeks left before the midterm elections, momentum is clearly with Republicans in the race for both the House and Senate. And that's in large part due to a big bet the party made that crime would be a central issue for the public this fall.

Over the first three weeks of October, GOP candidates and committees spent $64.5 million on ads focused on crime - nearly one-quarter of all the money they spent on ads over that period, according to a CNN analysis of AdImpact data. Many of those ads accused Democrats of supporting the ending of cash bail or efforts to defund the police. Sensing vulnerability, Democrats have also aired a significant amount of crime-related ads, dropping $58 million during that same period, accounting for 15% of their total ad spending.

New polling data from Gallup makes clear why Republican ads on crime have been so effective in moving voters. More than half of Americans (56%) said there was more crime in their area compared to a year ago. That's up a whopping 11 points from 2021 and 18 points from 2020, and is the highest mark ever measured by Gallup - in five decades of polling on the question. cnn.com

Richmond, VA: Community leaders work to stop gun violence after c-store shooting
 
Op-Ed: Kathy Hochul and New York's never-ending backlash against crime

US: 99.3M Cases - 1M Dead - 96.8M Recovered
Worldwide: 635.5M Cases - 6.5M Dead - 614.7M Recovered

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 362   Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 812

iPhone Factory Workers Flee Amid Lockdown Chaos
Apple: Chinese workers flee Covid lockdown at iPhone factory

Workers have broken out of Apple's largest iPhone assembly factory in China after a Covid outbreak forced staff to lockdown at the workplace.

Video shared online showed about 10 people jumping a fence outside the plant, owned by manufacturer Foxconn, in the central city of Zhengzhou.

Chinese people and businesses are continuing to grapple with President Xi Jinping's rigid zero-Covid policy. It is not clear how many cases of Covid have been identified at the factory.

Foxconn, which acts as a supplier to US-based Apple, has hundreds of thousands of workers at its Zhengzhou complex and has not provided an official count of how many are infected.

However, in footage shared on Chinese social media, and by the BBC's China correspondent Stephen McDonnell, workers were allegedly filmed escaping from the grounds to begin lengthy walks back to their hometowns in a bid to avoid being caught on public transport.

Many said they have been confined to their quarters for days and that distribution of food and other essentials has been chaotic. Many others say they are too scared to carry on working because of the risk of getting infected. bbc.com wsj.com

The 'Tripledemic' is Coming
Biden faces COVID dilemma as a winter wave nears
Stealthy new COVID-19 variants, low vaccination rates and mixed messaging over the state of the pandemic threaten to thwart the Biden administration's efforts to contain a wintertime surge.

"We are going to see an uptick in cases and hospitalizations, we'll see higher rates of hospitalizations and deaths among those 50-plus who have not gotten the newest booster, but it's probably going to be milder than last winter," said Megan Ranney, academic dean at the Brown University School of Public Health.

But as the administration prepares for an expected convergence of more transmissible variants, a major uptick in RSV cases and worse-than-usual flu season, it makes for a challenging message, Mina said. axios.com

Another State Ends COVID Emergency
Washington COVID-19 restrictions set to end
The COVID state of emergency orders in Washington will end on Monday, October 31st. State, health, and education employees will no longer be required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. A permanent vaccination requirement remains for 56 state agencies. komonews.com

'Scrabble variants' now cause the majority of new Covid-19 infections in the US

UK set for low Covid cases this Christmas as winter wave has already peaked

Multi-Location Security Systems & Monitoring
for Franchises

Guardian Protection is the one name to remember to help you monitor multiple sites, secure valuable assets & employees, and reduce shrinkage.


 

24/7 location monitoring for franchises

Our monitoring is among the very best in the business. Guardian owns and operates two award-winning, U.S.-based monitoring centers. Both are Five Diamond-accredited by The Monitoring Association (formerly CSAA), certified by the Underwriters Laboratories (UL-listed), and FM Global approved.

● Able to respond to your system's alarm signal in an average of just 30 seconds
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Multi-camera security system

See what's happening at your locations anytime, anywhere - via computer or mobile device - with 24/7 live look-in access. You can observe, record, and create a permanent visual record.

● Help deter theft, violence and vandalism on your premises
● Minimize false alarms, fines, hazards, and liabilities such as slip and falls
● Monitor restricted areas, property maintenance, and employee and vendor activity
● Choose from standalone DVR and enterprise-level IP-based solutions

Multi-site access control

Software-based access control systems help eliminate the need for easily duplicated keys, and help control employee access to specific areas such as inventory rooms and special offices. With this system, you can:

● Instantly add or remove an employee's access via your smartphone, tablet, or computer
● Easily identify employees through trackable photo badges and record entry and exit patterns
● Program doors to automatically lock at certain times of the day

Retail Data Breach
Bed Bath & Beyond reviewing data breach
Bed Bath & Beyond is reviewing a data breach after a third party improperly accessed data on a hard drive and certain shared drives via a phishing scam, the company disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday.

The distressed home goods retailer said it “has no reason to believe” the data accessed contains sensitive or personal information, or that this will have a “material impact” on the company.

The news came as the retailer announced it would be selling additional shares of its common stock, with a maximum aggregate offering amount of up to $150 million, to help pay down its debt and rebalance its inventory and assortment.

Bed Bath & Beyond has faced declining sales in recent months as demand for home goods dwindled. In its most recent quarter, the company reported net sales fell 28% year over year to $1.4 billion, while comparable sales fell 26%. At the same time, Bed Bath & Beyond’s operating loss grew to $346.2 million from $84.1 million last year, while its net loss reached $366.2 million from $73.2 million in the year-ago period.

As it navigates yet another turnaround, the company last week named a permanent CEO in Sue Gove, who has been serving in the role in the interim following the departure of Target veteran Mark Tritton. The company has experienced other changes within its C-suite including in the chief financial officer, chief operating officer, chief merchandising officer and chief stores officer positions. retaildive.com

In Case You Missed It: Today is the Last Day of Cybersecurity Month
But these tips can boost your cybersecurity all year round

Interface Systems Shares Best Practices with Retailers for Cybersecurity Month

Company highlights prevention strategies for securing POS, cloud-based applications, and mitigating loyalty program fraud

St. Louis, MO (October 4, 2022) - As retailers integrate their digital and physical shopping experiences to future-proof their business models, it's never been more important to be aware of the cybersecurity vulnerabilities that can be created by digital transformation. As cybersecurity awareness month becomes a focus of discussion in October, Interface Systems, a leading managed service provider delivering business security, managed network, UCaaS, and business intelligence solutions to distributed enterprises, shares best practices on how to prevent retail cyber-attacks and mitigate fraud.

Retail chains face a variety of security challenges, from connected POS (Point of sale) systems and devices to online ordering and delivery applications. Retailers' data lakes, which combine their customers' data with credit card information, make them particularly attractive targets for cybercriminals. The consequences of security lapses go beyond legal issues and often result in significant financial loss as customers lose confidence in the brand.

Securing the Point of Sale

POS applications are directly connected to credit card data, loyalty management applications, and inventory management systems. They are easily accessible, and retailers often struggle to manage the sheer number of in-store terminals, self-service kiosks, and mobile payment devices. To secure their POS, retailers need to:

● Encrypt all POS data end-to-end
● Accept EMV chip cards and NFC (contactless payment) technologies
● Whitelist applications to run on a POS system
● Keep their POS software up to date
● Address PCI-DSS compliance gaps proactively
● Segment the POS network
● Physically secure POS devices including mobile POS devices
● Watch out for unusual transactions
● Integrate security cameras with POS transactions

Read more strategies from Interface Systems here

New Apple Security Research Initiative
Apple Launches New Security Research Hub

Apple engineers share technical details about the team's work on memory safety features on the new Apple Security Research site.

Apple's work on hardening the memory allocator has made it harder for attackers to exploit certain classes of software vulnerabilities on iOS and Mac devices, the company's security engineers wrote on a new website Apple launched to share technical details behind iOS and MacOS security technologies.

The new initiative, Apple Security Research, also offers tools to help security researchers report issues to Apple, get real-time status updates for submitted reports, communicate securely with Apple engineers investigating the issue, and provides information about the Apple Security Bounty program. The intent behind the new security hub is to share with the research community how Apple engineers approach security challenges, and also to invite researcher contributions and feedback.

Memory safety is a key area of focus, especially since memory safety violations are the most widely exploited class of software vulnerabilities. On Apple platforms, improving memory safety includes "finding and fixing vulnerabilities, developing with safe languages, and deploying mitigations at scale," the engineers wrote in a technical post on XNU memory safety.

Much of the code running on the iPhone, iPad, and Mac were written using "memory-unsafe" programming languages, which means they don't prevent memory safety violations and developers can inadvertently and unknowingly violate memory safety rules while writing code, the researchers wrote. Those issues can be exploited by attackers to crash software, execute unauthorized command, and harvest sensitive information.

In Apple's update on its bounty program, the company said it has awarded close to $20 million to security researchers over the past two-and-a-half years since the program was launched. While average payouts are around $40,000 in the product category, the company has paid 20 separate rewards over $100,000 for high-impact issues. Evaluation criteria researchers need to meet in order to collect bounties are available on Apple Security Research. darkreading.com

AI Cyberattacks Against Business Operations
Mitigating the risks of artificial intelligence compromise
The number of cyberattacks directed at artificial intelligence (AI) continues to increase, and hackers are no longer planting malicious bugs within code - their techniques have become increasingly complex, allowing them to tamper with systems to compromise and "weaponize" AI against the organizations leveraging it for their operations.

Take commercial farms for example - hackers are now able to cause considerable damage to operations and livestock, whether through tampering with datasets or shutting down sprayers, harvesters, and drones responsible for the well-being of crops and produce. For SMEs and other organizations, this can lead to significant financial and reputational damage should sensitive data be stolen or a system authenticating and validating users is corrupted, and there is no quick fix should a breach take place.

To successfully mitigate any threats, security professionals must look at the surface-level aspects of an AI, but also dive deeper into the data sets of a system, and review how best these can be secured. By looking at the four interactional elements of machine learning (ML), one can evaluate how each can be affected by a cyberattack and put roadblocks in place to protect each aspect.

Leveraging a "trusted" approach

The fundamental actions required from any security approach is to protect, detect, attest, and recover from any modifications to coding, whether malicious or otherwise. The best way to fully secure a compromised AI is applying a "trusted computing" model..

Starting with the data set aspect of a system, a component such as a Trusted Platform Module (TPM) is able to sign and verify that any data provided to the machine has been communicated from a reliable source.

Maintaining a secure system: helpnetsecurity.com

After a cyber breach, companies risk losing employees' trust
54% of office workers would reconsider working for a company that had recently experienced a cyber breach, according to a study by Encore.

Economic strife fuels cyber anxiety

Prepare Now for Critical Flaw in OpenSSL, Security Experts Warn