No End in Sight in Gotham
NYC's crime, mental health crises have Hochul, 'rookie' Adams on the ropes

Adams' 'rookie' mistakes

For Adams, the situation underscores how he missed his best chance to get help from Hochul on crime during the campaign, when she was vulnerable and needed his backing. Now she would have trouble delivering the measures Adams wants, even if she agreed they are needed.

Crime, of course, was the major issue that propelled Adams to victory a year ago and, while murder and shootings are down by 11% and 16% respectively this year, violence and disorder remain Public Enemy No. 1 for most New Yorkers.

When he was elected, Adams jubilantly vowed he would show America how to run a city. Perhaps sobered by the difficulties, he said recently that 2022 is his "rookie year" and promised more results soon.

If 2023 really is going to mark a big improvement, Adams will need to stay more relentlessly focused on crime, including things like fare-beating and shoplifting. He often seems to take his eye off the ball, as with his embrace of a migrant influx from the border.

And when Hochul and lawmakers refused to make needed changes to bail laws and other criminal justice measures that are turning loose dangerous people, he eventually gave up and accepted the cold shoulder. nypost.com

Retail Theft Used as Example For Ending Bail

Get Out of Jail Free in Illinois

Gov. J.B. Pritzker is brilliant with his use of reverse psychology.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois is brilliant with his use of reverse psychology (“Illinois’s No-Bail Criminal Experiment,” Review & Outlook, Dec. 13). It’s only a matter of time before criminals realize that they’re much safer inside rather than outside his jails and petition for longer terms. wsj.com

Ind.: Cash bail is ending statewide on Jan. 1, despite the failure of bail reform elsewhere
Democrats have full control of state government in Illinois, so they can take full credit for the mess unfolding in public safety. Crime is rising, but on Jan. 1 the Land of Lincoln will become the first state to abolish cash bail, putting more defendants awaiting criminal trial back on the streets.

New York and New Jersey have eliminated bail in some cases, and after that produced predictable results, Albany pared back parts of its law. Illinois is undeterred and is ending cash bail statewide.

The current system in Illinois has three options: The most dangerous suspects can be detained leading up to trial. The rest can be bailed out pending a hearing, or else released on their own recognizance. The adjusted rules will eliminate the middle option and restrict judicial discretion on which suspects pose a threat to the community if freed.

Illinois enacted these changes in the SAFE-T Act, which passed in 2021 after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis at the hands of police. Many states reacted to the public outrage by rushing through criminal-justice reforms. But the Illinois bill posed so many problems that all but two of Illinois’s 102 state attorneys objected. Lawsuits filed by more than half of them are consolidated in Kankakee County. State legislators have twice amended the law to address complaints, but the no-bail experiment is set to go ahead.

Gov. J.B. Pritzker says ending bail is about “addressing the problem of a single mother who shoplifted diapers for her baby,” and who shouldn’t be “put in jail and kept there for six months because she doesn’t have a couple of hundred dollars.” That isn’t what the bail law is about. But since he mentioned it, Cook County state’s attorney Kim Foxx, another “progressive prosecutor,” raised her office’s felony threshold for retail theft to $1,000 in 2016, so the diaper mom is safe.

Voters who see rising mayhem in the streets will know whom to blame. wsj.com

Walmart Is Often at the Center of the National Gun Debate
Although the chain sells guns at its stores throughout the United States, Walmart has imposed increasingly strict restrictions on firearm sales as mass shootings have continued in the country. In recent years, it stopped selling handguns and certain rifles, including AR-15s, and raised the minimum age to purchase firearms to 21.

After 23 people were killed by a gunman in a Walmart store in El Paso in August 2019, the company publicly urged Congress and President Donald J. Trump to strengthen background checks and renew the debate over an assault rifle ban.

Walmart has also taken additional steps, such as ceasing the sale of ammunition that could be used in military-style weapons and discouraging people from openly carrying weapons into its stores, a policy it announced in 2019.

In that announcement, Mr. McMillon cited "multiple incidents since El Paso, where individuals attempting to make a statement and test our response have entered our stores carrying weapons in a way that frightened or concerned our associates and customers."

By the nature of its size and geographic reach - it has more than 4,000 stores spread across the United States - Walmart is commonly the site of crimes, some of them violent. During the pandemic, some retailers and their employees have said that violence has increased in all types of stores.

Walmart has said it has taken steps to bolster security in some stores such as installing cameras in parking lots and hiring off-duty police officers during busy shopping days. nytimes.com

More Police Departments Adding ORC Units
VIEWPOINT: Delaware's theft epidemic: A silent economic killer
Crime - burglary, robbery, vandalism, shoplifting, employee theft, and fraud - costs businesses billions of dollars each year. Crime can be particularly devastating to small businesses, who lose both customers and employees when crime and fear claim a neighborhood. When small businesses are victims of crime, they often react by changing their hours of operation, raising their prices to cover their losses, relocating outside the community, or simply closing. Fear of crime isolates businesses, much like fear isolates individuals - and this isolation increases vulnerability to crime.

For businesses, burglary, theft, and shoplifting are of primary significance. Nationally, commercial burglaries in 2019 accounted for 32% of all burglaries reported. There are organized groups of criminals who participate in planned shoplifting operations. Many police agencies today assign officers specifically to units that focus on organized criminal shoplifting groups.

The Attorney General's office, law enforcement and industry organizations working together to educate business owners and employees on prevention techniques by:

• Restoring the pre-pandemic dedicated retail crime unit within the state police, assigned to exclusively to work on organized retail crime (ORC).

• Ensuring the legislated dedicated attorney general retail prosecutor is named and assigned workload exclusive to organized retail crime. At monthly in-person meeting with industry businesses, must discuss actions, results, and recommendations to reduce retail crime.

• Re-establish the monthly in-person meeting with businesses loss prevention, attorney general retail prosecutor, state police ORC task force, court calendar administrator, chambers, and industry groups.

• Further develop and coordinate technology for mass communication between retailers and detectives for rapid response.

• Communicate effective enforcement of civil recovery judgments by the courts and collection agencies to offset retailers cost of theft.

• Holding an annual loss prevention conference including national and regional loss prevention professionals, members of the public, legislators, and other impacted groups with a publicly available annual report of crime issues facing Delaware businesses delawarebusinesstimes.com

Seattle Eliminates 80 Police Positions
Seattle's Murder Rates At Record High But The City Set To Defund
Homicides in Seattle, Washington, hit a 26-year high after the city council defunded the police. A police exodus crippled the department and voters so much that the city responded by electing a pro-police mayor and a Republican city attorney. The movement was a failure, yet the council just voted to defund the police once again.

Police dismantling is not a new agenda. By a 6-3 vote, the council passed total funding for the police department's hiring plan but permanently defunded 80 police positions in already understaffed departments. Democratic council members denied the cuts, saying the Seattle Police Department will be fully funded in 2023.

Mayor Bruce Harrell saw the police department had no way of meeting its hiring goals of 200 officers next year and offered to cut police funding temporarily next year. His budget did support a hire of 120 new officers, but feelings of uncertainty that it could be done amassed. Cutting funds temporarily would save money while giving the SPD time to rebuild by hiring new officers.

Seattle City Council saw an opportunity to shrink the department instead. While the new hire staff plan will be fully funded, the remaining positions in the department were cut. Council members Sarah Nelson and Alex Pederson voted against the budget as concerns loomed about public safety. Nelson said, "I believe eliminating these positions does reinforce a 'defund' narrative that got us here." republicannation.com

Shootings of youths are soaring in D.C., vexing city leaders
Sixteen juveniles have been fatally shot so far this year. The grim tally is more than double the number of youth killed by bullets at the same time in 2021. Nonfatal shootings up 80%.

16 would be dead. Over that same period, 82 youths were shot and injured, and more than 200 juveniles were arrested for themselves committing violent crimes. Each of those numbers has increased compared to the same time last year, though juveniles still account for less than a quarter of arrests in all violent incidents citywide.

D.C. is not the only city struggling with youths being shot. Nationwide, more than 5,800 people under 18 years old have been wounded or killed by gunfire this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. That number has increased each year since the pandemic started, with about 3,820 juveniles shot fatally or non-fatally in 2019.

City leaders, despite repeated efforts over months, appear unable to quiet the gunfire. "There has to be a certain level of urgency behind this because it does involve our young people," said D.C. Police Chief Robert J. Contee III.

Contee said in an interview that his officers are doing their part and pointed to the courts for being too soft on offenders.

Experts have attributed the increase in juveniles shot and shooting, in part, to two factors: pandemic-related trauma, and the proliferation of guns in the city and beyond.

More than 10 million children lost a parent or caregiver to the coronavirus. Even more kids saw their family members' jobs and mental health wither away. Each of these disruptions, experts have found, weighed more heavily on children who are Black or impoverished. washingtonpost.com

FBI report shows high hate crime levels, but data missing

10 years after Sandy Hook: More mass shootings, U.S. stumbling with gun control

Data Privacy vs. Personalization in Retail
The key to the battle between privacy and personalization? It's in the hands of the shopper

As the data privacy landscape shifts, it's become increasingly difficult for retailers to collect and manage customer data.

Many state-level privacy laws will take effect in 2023, and a federal privacy law may not be far behind.
In addition, third-party cookie deprecation is approaching.

Customers aren't too eager on data sharing either: Over three-quarters of Gen Z consumers say that having an ad experience based on their data is invasive, and only about 40% are willing to give data to get a more personalized experience.

Now, more than ever, retailers need to navigate the fine line between privacy and personalization. The solution lies with shoppers themselves. If retailers can convince consumers that sharing their data is worth it, it's a win-win for everyone.

1. Incentivize - One way to persuade customers to share their data is through value exchange, Heidi Bullock, CMO of Tealium, said on our "Reimagining Retail" podcast. Retailers can use discounts or free gifts to entice customers to provide their emails or phone numbers.

2. Personalize - While one-to-one messaging is difficult to achieve at scale, the closer you can get, the more you can create the right moment for when customers are ready to buy, Bullock said. Who's doing it well? Athletic apparel company New Balance, which uses its customer data to personalize its messaging in a couple of ways. Through its app, New Balance gives users the ability to track their runs. But taking it one step further, the app also reminds them when they need new shoes.

3. Optimize - One way to avoid this friction is a connected technology experience that collects data in real time and feeds it into all of your channels.  insiderintelligence.com

Remote Work & Cybersecurity
The new workplace imperative: Authenticate anywhere, access everywhere
The nature of our working lives has changed dramatically in recent years. Long gone are the days of limiting ourselves to office spaces and desktop computers. With technology advancing and the pandemic pushing businesses to find new solutions for making remote work seamless, the ability to facilitate access around the globe has become paramount. With employees now able to work literally everywhere, the onus is on businesses to be able to grant secure information access anywhere.

But this presents a problem. How do companies allow employees on completely different networks in completely different locations have convenient access? The challenge of securely identifying a person becomes much greater when work can be done anywhere around the world.

Travel Outside the Fence

Like using a credit card, many businesses have methods for identifying unusual behavior in their network. To reduce the risk of an attack, tools like geofencing are used as one method for gauging whether an action like logging into the network is being done by a friend or a foe. While this makes the network more secure, it also can create obstacles for traveling and remote employees. An attempted login from China may be threat actors, it may also be Steve from marketing checking his email while visiting Shanghai with his family.

High Risk Means High Security

This is where adaptive authentication comes in. Many companies use systems that analyze the risk of a login attempt based on different factors. Is the login coming from a known device? Is it coming at a strange time? Where in the world is the login attempt originating from? By gauging the risk of a login attempt, the system can request more stringent security measures for situations with greater risk. In order to best understand the effectiveness of these measures, businesses can look at extreme cases to see if their system can provide secure access from anywhere.

Something You Are

The key here is the necessity to accurately verify the identity of a person. While some MFA methods rely on things that you have, like a laptop or hardware token, and some rely on things that you know, like a simple password, the company, in this instance, needs to be confident that they are not only verifying a device or a piece of knowledge but the person themselves. Some things are immutably us - our face, our fingerprints, palm prints, and our voice, which cannot be stolen by hackers and aren't dependent on the device we are using. These biometric measurements can prove that we are whom we say we are in situations where everything else about the login process is abnormal. securitymagazine.com

From Russia With Love
Hydra Aftermath: Where Do Criminals Lurk Now? Where Else?

Russian-Language Darknet Markets Replace Hydra and Surpass Its Popularity

Mere months after a multinational law enforcement team took down the world's largest darknet marketplace, a dozen others have taken its place.

The new platforms collectively bring in more revenue than the very profitable, now-sanctioned and shuttered Hydra marketplace, which received more than $400 million during the first four months of 2022, before its demise in April.

Almost all the new forums operate in the Russian language, analysis from TRM Labs shows.

These platforms, also called crypto markets, offer identity obfuscation and anonymization networks to criminals and allow the use of encryption-focused cryptocurrency for payment. Their sellers offer illicit drugs, counterfeit money, stolen credit card details and anonymous SIM cards and malware. They also launder cryptocurrency.

Seller activity increased by 24% on the new marketplaces in the first five months of their existence compared to Hydra during the same relative period in 2015, TRM Labs says.

Four darknet marketplaces dominate approximately 80% of the market share, and each of them is part of the new wave of Russian-language sites that has emerged in the wake of Hydra. The largest Western bitcoin darknet marketplace, ASAP Market, accounts for less than 10% of global darknet market share.

Of the four, Blacksprut is the largest market. It has 28% of global share, followed by Mega Darknet with 22% and OMG!OMG! with 17%. databreachtoday.com

NCCoE Releases Final Practice Guide: NIST SP 1800-34, Validating the Integrity of Computing Devices

The National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCoE) has published the final version of NIST SP 1800-34, Validating the Integrity of Computing Devices.

What Is This Guide About?

Technologies today rely on complex, globally distributed and interconnected supply chain ecosystems to provide reusable solutions. Organizations are increasingly at risk of cyber supply chain compromise, whether intentional or unintentional. Managing cyber supply chain risks requires, in part, ensuring the integrity, quality, and resilience of the supply chain and its products and services. This project demonstrates how organizations can verify that the internal components of their computing devices are genuine and have not been altered during the manufacturing or distribution processes. content.govdelivery.com

CISA Updates Advisory on #StopRansomware: Cuba Ransomware
Original release date: December 13, 2022

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and CISA have updated joint Cybersecurity Advisory AA22-335A: #StopRansomware: Cuba Ransomware, originally released on December 01, 2022. The advisory has been updated to include additional indicators of compromise (IOCs).

CISA encourages organizations to review the latest update to AA22-335A and apply the recommended mitigations. cisa.gov

Metaparasites & the Dark Web: Scammers Turn on Their Own

Former Mobile Phone Store Owner Sentenced to 10 Yrs in Federal Prison for $28.4M Scheme to Illegally Unlock Cellphones
LOS ANGELES - A former owner of a T-Mobile retail store in Eagle Rock was sentenced today to 120 months in federal prison for his multimillion-dollar scheme in which he stole T-Mobile employee credentials and illegally accessed the company's internal computer systems to illicitly "unlock" and "unblock" cellphones.

Argishti Khudaverdyan, 44, of Burbank, was sentenced by United States District Judge Stephen V. Wilson, who also ordered him to pay $28,473,535 in restitution.

Khudaverdyan ran a multi-year scheme that illegally unlocked and unblocked cellphones, which generated tens of millions of dollars in criminal proceeds. During this time, most cellphone companies - including T-Mobile - "locked" their customers' phones so they could be used only on the company's network until the customers' phone and service contracts had been fulfilled. If customers wanted to switch to a different carrier, their phones had to be "unlocked." Carriers also "blocked" cellphones to protect consumers in the case of lost or stolen cellphones.

From August 2014 to June 2019, Khudaverdyan fraudulently unlocked and unblocked cellphones on T-Mobile's network, as well as the networks of Sprint, AT&T, and other carriers. Removing the unlock allowed the phones to be sold on the black market and enabled T-Mobile customers to stop using T-Mobile's services and thereby deprive T-Mobile of revenue generated from customers' service contracts and equipment installment plans.

Khudaverdyan advertised his fraudulent unlocking services through brokers, email solicitations and websites. He falsely claimed the fraudulent unlocks that he provided were "official" T-Mobile unlocks.

From January 2017 through June 2017, Khudaverdyan and a former business partner were also co-owners of Top Tier Solutions Inc., a T-Mobile store in Eagle Rock Plaza. However, after T-Mobile terminated Khudaverdyan's contract in June 2017 based on his suspicious computer behavior and association with unauthorized unlocking of cellphones, Khudaverdyan continued his fraud.

To gain unauthorized access to T-Mobile's protected internal computers, Khudaverdyan obtained T-Mobile employees' credentials through various dishonest means, including sending phishing emails that appeared to be legitimate T-Mobile correspondence, and socially engineering the T-Mobile IT Help Desk. Khudaverdyan used the fraudulent emails to trick T-Mobile employees to log in with their employee credentials so he could harvest the employees' information and fraudulently unlock the phones.

In total, Khudaverdyan and others compromised and stole more than 50 different T-Mobile employees' credentials from employees across the United States, and they unlocked and unblocked hundreds of thousands of cellphones during the years of the scheme.

Khudaverdyan obtained more than $25 million for these criminal activities. He used these illegal proceeds to pay for, among other things, real estate in Burbank and Northridge.

Alen Gharehbagloo, 43, of La Cañada Flintridge, a co-defendant and a former co-owner of Top Tier Solutions Inc., pleaded guilty on July 5. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for February 13, 2023. justice.gov

Lillington, NC: Over $630K In Cars Stolen From North Carolina Dealership
Ten vehicles were stolen from the John Hiester Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram store of Lillington early Friday morning. One-by-one, these expensive high-end cars were driven off a dealership lot by thieves. The elaborate plot was captured on security cameras, showing multiple individuals breaking into vehicles around 4:30 a.m. John Hiester, the owner, indicated these large-scale thefts seem to be part of a car theft ring, with several stores in Winston-Salem having been robbed recently from, presumably, the same group. Jeremy Stephens, Hiester's operations manager, believes that the thieves scouted inventory online and even came to the dealership to scope out the lot and also what cars were available. The value of the lost cars is over $600,000 - including a Corvette convertible, a Durango SRT and multiple Challengers - and that loss doesn't even count the damage to the building. Aside from Hiester's lot in Lillington and last week's hit in Winston-Salem, three other major dealerships have been targeted recently, including: Brother Auto Sales in Raleigh on Sept. 12 Hendrick Dodge in Cary on Sept. 12 Deacon Jones in Goldsboro on Dec. 6. wral.com

Houston, TX: Thieves hit Houston wedding dress shop for second time in 3 months, over $50,000
More than $50,000 worth of designer wedding gowns were stolen from a Tanglewood boutique overnight, again. Burglars have targeted David Peck's Boutique on Fountain View and San Felipe for the second time in three months. Surveillance cameras from David Peck's boutique captures a masked burglar pulling up outside the business on Fountainview near San Felipe around 3 AM Monday in a U-Haul truck. The burglar is seen hurling a sledgehammer through the glass window and in less than a minute, walks out with more than $50,000 worth of clothing. "It seems that whoever came last night knew exactly what they wanted, where it was. They had been in the store or had been told what was in the store and exactly where it was. How they got that information? I don't know," owner David Peck said. Most of David Peck's gowns are custom, hand-made designs with imported fabrics from Europe. Each dress can take up to several weeks to create and retails up to $10,000 each.  fox26houston.com

DOJ: Los Angeles, CA: Update: Former Mobile Phone Store Owner Sentenced to 10 Years in Federal Prison for Multimillion-Dollar Scheme to Illegally Unlock Cellphones
A former owner of a T-Mobile retail store in Eagle Rock was sentenced today to 120 months in federal prison for his multimillion-dollar scheme in which he stole T-Mobile employee credentials and illegally accessed the company's internal computer systems to illicitly "unlock" and "unblock" cellphones. Argishti Khudaverdyan, 44, of Burbank, was sentenced by United States District Judge Stephen V. Wilson, who also ordered him to pay $28,473,535 in restitution. Khudaverdyan ran a multi-year scheme that illegally unlocked and unblocked cellphones, which generated tens of millions of dollars in criminal proceeds. During this time, most cellphone companies - including T-Mobile - "locked" their customers' phones so they could be used only on the company's network until the customers' phone and service contracts had been fulfilled. If customers wanted to switch to a different carrier, their phones had to be "unlocked." Carriers also "blocked" cellphones to protect consumers in the case of lost or stolen cellphones.  justice.gov

Dayton, OH: 2 Cuban Nationals charged with skimming credit cards from gas pumps
Two Cuban nationals were arrested by federal law enforcement officers last week for allegedly placing skimmers on gas pumps in southwest Ohio in order to steal credit card data. Surveillance video in April shows Yasmany Ulacia Garcia, 34, and Luis Ernesto Vigil Ochoa, 29, allegedly using that stolen credit card information to purchase gift cards and other merchandise at Home Depot stores around the region, including in Hamilton and West Chester Twp. in Butler County, Mason and Lebanon in Warren County, Beechmont area in Hamilton County, Milford in Clermont County, and Cold Spring in Northern Kentucky. Similar video surveillance shows the two defendants also allegedly using stolen credit card information to purchase gift cards at Target in Mason. Agents discovered multiple gift cards and a fraudulent American Express card in their vehicle. Law enforcement searched their hotel room and discovered a magnetic strip reader and writer and a skimming device. The possession of a skimmer device with the intent to defraud is a federal crime they could face up to 15 years in prison. springfieldnewssun.com

Tamarac, FL: Thief snags nearly $10K in merchandise from beauty supply store in Tamarac
A thief snatched several wigs at a beauty supply store in Tamarac and made a run for it, and the owner of the business said the stolen merchandise is worth thousands of dollars. Sunday morning, a customer went to The Beauty Plug in Tamarac and had questions about a wig worth hundreds of dollars. It's the latest blow to a nearly 2-year-old business that Thompson and her husband hoped could provide a solid foundation for thier two teenage daughters. This is not the first time The Beauty Plug has been targeted by thieves with an eye for pricey merchandise. Exactly a year ago, three young women - one pregnant, another holding a baby - pulled a similar snatch-and-grab, pepper-spraying Thompson's daughter on their way out. wsvn.com

Taylorsville, UT: 10 arrested in Retail Theft Operation among multiple law enforcement agencies
Over the course of two days last week, Taylorsville police officers arrested at least 10 people they said were involved in retail thefts. Two of the suspects were accused of traveling to several states where one acts as the decoy while the other picks the pocket. "When they get ahold of somebody's credit card they go buy large quantities of gift cards." said Sgt. Jake Hill with the Taylorsville Police Department. Hill said they made the decision to ramp up these investigative efforts given the time of year. "The more that they're arrested the more that they try to learn other tactics to avoid apprehension," Hill said. Two cars were impounded and police seized $1,000 in stolen property that had since been returned it to the stores. kjzz.com

Gates, NY: 12 cars stolen from Hertz, half recovered in the city of Rochester

Carmel, IN: Police look for suspect who stole $5k worth of items from Walgreens

Yorktown Heights, NY: Woman Charged With Stealing Over $3K Of Property From Jefferson Valley Mall

Espanola, NM: $3,000 Worth of Beef Jerky Was Stolen from a Mom and Pop Shop in Latest Food Heist