FaceFirst Launches SDK to Accelerate Computer Vision-enabled Security & Identity Verification Solutions

FaceFirst Introduces Software Development Kit (SDK) to Ease Deployment on Any Device

FaceFirst, the leading U.S. computer vision company, announced today the availability of its SDK (Software Development Kit). This enables developers of security and identity verification products to incorporate advanced facial recognition and other video analytics into their solutions with just a few lines of code.

Retailers, transportation centers, hospitals, law enforcement agencies are just some of the organizations that trust FaceFirst face recognition and video analytics solutions to detect and deter real time threats and enhance customer engagement. The FaceFirst SDK helps technology teams quickly enable cameras, kiosks, terminals, and other IoT hardware products with frictionless identity verification and customer insights that proactively personalize the customer journey and reduce or eliminate identity fraud and crime.

“FaceFirst’s SDK transforms the ease with which developers build complete face recognition and video analytics solutions,” said Peter Trepp, CEO at FaceFirst. “The SDK falls right in line with our strategic goal of making FaceFirst the industry standard platform for organizations building safe communities, great customer experiences, and personalized services.”

Lightweight and easy to integrate, FaceFirst’s SDK includes native support for industry standards. It enables developers to customize and incorporate ID/transaction verification, password replacement, and personalized insights into their applications. The SDK can work online or offline, supports the Linux operating system and runs in a docker container to enable easy integration and embedding into any IoT device. It includes FaceFirst’s industry leading facial recognition for images and video and age / gender recognition capabilities.

To learn more about the FaceFirst SDK visit facefirst.com


New Report Finds Retail Returns Totaled $309 Billion in 2019
Impacting Stores and E-Commerce

Appriss Retail’s “2019 Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry” Report Finds Returns of Online Purchases Totaled $41 Billion; Return Fraud up 35% over 2018

Appriss Retail, the industry leader in retail performance improvement solutions, today released an analysis of the revenue and profit loss ramifications of U. S. consumer merchandise returns. The new “2019 Consumer Returns in the Retail Industry” report states that overall value of returned merchandise in the United States during the past year was $309 billion, and returns from online purchases accounted for $41 billion of that total. This cost does not include the overhead a retailer incurs when receiving, sorting, and repackaging useable goods for resale, nor does it account for the disposal of unsaleable merchandise. In addition, an estimated $27 billion of that sum were fraudulent returns, up 35% over 2018. Read more in today's Vendor Spotlight below.


Protos Security launches new logo

Logo reflects company’s expansion in managed, monitored and direct guard services

Protos Security, a nationwide leader in security guard services, today announced a new logo and brand identity system. The new branding reflects the company's expanded portfolio of managed, direct and monitored guard services from its acquisition of Security Resources Inc in August 2019. It also reinforces the combined company’s modern approach to delivering security guard services and next-generation technology that put clients in control of their loss prevention and risk management programs. Read More Here
 

NRF 2020: Microsoft's CEO Satya Nadella Says:

Data & AI is the 'Tip of the Spear' Shaping Retails Future

Your Store is a Computer - Automation & Prediction Through Data

One of the top tech trends he foresees spreading through the industry is personalization. About 30% of ecommerce sales come from recommendations and he said that percentage will keep increasing. Nadella said the market has reached a point where consumers expect personalized interaction with retailers, which can be accomplished through data and AI. “This is at the tip of the spear of how digital capability can shape what retail of the future looks like.”

There are already examples of AI being put to work across multiple aspects of the retail process. Nadella cited Starbucks, which developed their own AI technology called Deep Brew. “They built this using reinforcement learning; it’s driving their recommendation engine in the Starbucks app,” he said. “It’s something they are going to use across multichannels.”

Retailers have valuable assets, Nadella said, in the form of commercial intent and consumer behavior data. That information must be converted into marketing efforts that can be leveraged. For example, Marks & Spencer, he said, has implemented compute in-store to give the retailer the ability to track all activity including the length of the checkout process in real-time.

Nadella proposed that other retailers should consider similar approaches embedding compute throughout their operations to take greater advantage of transformation. “What if you took the entire store and effectively thought of it as a computer?” he asked. “You do that with your website and mobile app. What if the physical space itself had all of the computing signal, all of the analytical signal you have on your website?” informationweek.com

NRF 2020: Biometric facial recognition payments and matching, security and identity verification tools at NRF 2020
A great number of innovative solutions are showcased as well as insightful case studies that can disrupt retail with innovation.

• Computer vision-enabled security and identity verification solutions

• Biometric facial recognition payments

• Unified architecture for points of sale and interactive retail solutions

• Facial matching with deep learning analytics

• Seamless and friction-free inventory management

• Cash payment automation kiosks biometricupdate.com
 

Tampa, FL: Alert LP Agent Stops 'Firebomb' From Exploding at Walmart
Authorities in Tampa say they arrested a woman over the weekend who was trying to build a bomb inside a local Walmart. Just after 6 p.m. on Saturday deputies responded to the store on Fletcher Avenue for reports of a woman trying to make a "firebomb" inside the store.

Emily Stallard, 37, was opening items like flammable material, projectiles and matches inside the store that she hadn't paid for, the sheriff's office says. A security guard saw her and immediately called 911. Authorities say the guard and an off-duty FWC officer, who was in the store at the time, detained Stallard until deputies arrived.

“This woman had all the supplies she needed to cause mass destruction at her disposal. Had it not been for an observant off-duty law enforcement officer and a watchful security staff at Walmart, she may have followed through with her plans to cause an explosion inside the store," said Sheriff Chad Chronister.

The sheriff's office says Stallard had a child with her at the time. She is charged with attempted arson of a structure, fire bombing, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, child abuse and battery on a law enforcement officer. abcactionnews.com

How Tiffany Moved 114,000 Gems Without Getting Robbed

It Took Dozens of Security Officers, Hundreds of Cameras & a Vow of Secrecy
Moving to Temporary Quarters During Its Flagship Renovation on Fifth Avenue.

Tiffany & Company had millions of dollars’ worth of shining, sparkling jewelry in its famous Fifth Avenue store on Sunday: $4,000 rings that spell the world “love” in small diamonds, $165,000 diamond necklaces, and even a $2.475 million engagement ring that weighs as much as a bullet.

Tiffany was emptying its 10-story fortress for a long-planned renovation. The merchandise had to travel only 50 feet or so — Tiffany will occupy a former Nike store during the makeover — but security was tight.

The jeweler assigned 30 security officers to watch as 114,179 “units of merchandise” — a “unit” being retailing jargon for one ring, necklace or brooch — were taken from their display cases and shuttled to the temporary store.

New York City police officers were standing by outside. They watched as the jewelry was rolled along the sidewalk in distinctive carts with robin’s egg-blue tambour doors. The color is so much a part of Tiffany’s identity that the company has a trademark on it.

But if the carts were somewhat showy, they were also meant to be secure. They had locks that were checked and rechecked, and before each cart was pushed onto the sidewalk, it was sealed in plastic shrink-wrap. And Shifra Balancio, a Tiffany employee, was posted at the door of the store’s temporary home to keep a careful log of each cart that arrived.

There were 300 cameras monitoring the Tiffany store and about as many in the temporary store, as well as a few more trained on the route along the sidewalk, that were live feeding monitors surveilled by other security officials in the two stores and at Tiffany’s distribution center in Parsippany, N.J.

Employees had been told to keep word of the move quiet. That directive was repeated by Andrew Mikulskis, the Tiffany executive who coordinated the move and is overseeing the renovation, during a briefing for employees after the store closed on Sunday afternoon. He implored them not to post messages or photos on social media that might provide clues as to what was happening.

Well before that, Tiffany officials had monitored social media, looking for hints of potential criminality. Tiffany hired a company that tracks social media and provided a list of key words like “move,” “727 Fifth Avenue” — the address of the old store — “6 East 57th Street” and the move date.

As an extra security measure, Tiffany put up a tent in front of the door of the temporary store to block the view. Every item was entered into an inventory-control system when it was packed in the old store and checked off when it was unpacked in the temporary one. nytimes.com

Worldwide Sales of Knockoffs Exceeds $520B in 2019 - 3.3% of all Global Trade
How $470 million worth of fake Nikes get into the US

7 Year Investigation - Follow a Suspect Turned UC

An international counterfeiting ring shipped hundreds of millions of dollars worth of counterfeit sneakers to the United States using an elaborate web of fictitious company names, bogus paperwork, phony email addresses, and burner phones. That’s according to a now-unsealed federal complaint, which says the fake Nike and Louis Vuitton footwear would be worth more than $472 million if it were real.

It was a larger-than-usual bust for US authorities, who have broken up several large sneaker counterfeiting operations in recent months. Last year, the feds busted a New York-based counterfeiting ring they say smuggled 385,280 pairs of imitation Air Jordans into the country, potentially costing Nike more than $70 million in lost revenue. In October, federal agents arrested a Queens man they say shipped more than $5 million worth of fake Timberland and Ugg boots from China into the New York City area. The same month, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers intercepted 14,806 pairs of counterfeit Nike Air Jordans, which would have been worth $2.2 million, had they been genuine.

In this latest case, the counterfeiting crew allegedly used slightly altered versions of actual company names to make their shipping paperwork look legit. Once the cargo cleared US customs, the 40-foot containers didn’t go to the addresses listed on the manifests—which falsely claimed the shipments were made up of everyday household items like ventilation fans—but rather to various self-storage facilities in Brooklyn, Queens, and Long Island, NY, where the boxes of phony sneakers were broken down into smaller quantities to be sold. Investigators eventually linked a total of 129 shipping containers containing bogus shoes to the same organization.

The network first appeared on law enforcement’s radar in February 2012, when CBP officers in the New York area seized a container loaded with counterfeit sneakers coming in from China. CBP made 16 identical seizures over the next several years—with, of course, unknown numbers slipping into the country undetected.

Finally, in October 2018, investigators picked up a crucial lead.

Setting the trap - Follow How Investigators Developed a Undercover Op. qz.com

Stop stolen guns in Baltimore County by requiring retailers to secure
the weapons they sell

Secure All Firearms Effectively (SAFE) Act

More than 5,650 firearms were stolen nationwide in burglaries from firearm retailers in 2018 alone, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Stolen firearms are often sold or traded to criminals, providing deadly weapons to many individuals barred from owning guns. These weapons in turn are used to commit violent crimes.

In 2018 and 2019 alone, there were 10 burglaries or attempted burglaries at seven different firearm retail establishments in Baltimore County. More than 50 firearms were stolen in those incidents. Meanwhile, last summer, criminals targeted establishments in Howard County and Montgomery County on successive nights, stealing a total of 45 weapons. Often, even after arrests are made in these cases, stolen firearms are never recovered.

More can be done to stop these crimes, and we have an obligation to do so. That is why we are proposing the Secure All Firearms Effectively (SAFE) Act: a straightforward public safety solution to keep stolen guns off our streets and out of the hands of violent criminals.

The SAFE Act sets minimum security standards for firearm retailers and gun shows to deter would-be burglars and prevent guns from being stolen. Specifically, the bill creates a new county license requiring a police department-approved plan that uses a combination of physical security, video surveillance and alarm systems to provide a baseline level of security.

Security requirements have already been enacted in other jurisdictions, including Connecticut, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia — and they work. New Jersey, a state with a policy similar to the SAFE Act, saw three firearms stolen by burglars between 2012 and 2017 while North Carolina, a state without requirements, saw 1,400 firearms burgled over that same period. baltimoresun.com

With package theft at an all-time high, Amazon and others are fighting back

1.7M Thefts A Day Costing $25M in Theft Daily

Package theft is at an all-time high, with 1.7 million packages stolen or lost every day in the U.S. As Amazon drives more shopping online, Prime members say they receive on average 51 packages a year, and one in three Americans report having at least one package stolen, resulting in $25 million of lost goods and services every day, according to C+R Research.

In response, Amazon has installed secure locker locations in 900 U.S. cities and now offers Amazon Key, which allows customers to give remote access to delivery drivers so they can leave packages inside the home, garage or car trunk. UPS, FedEx and the U.S. Postal Service also offer a growing number of storefronts where packages can be picked up. Other solutions include video doorbells by companies like Google, start-ups experimenting with advanced package tracking, and lockboxes for individual homes. cnbc.com

NRF Big Show: Positive outlook for 2020
The economy is positioned for steady growth this year.

Jack Kleinhenz, NRF chief economist, is optimistic that NRF will hit its economic forecasts for the year. “I think 2020 will be a little more balanced and less uncertain,” Kleinhenz said at the conference. “I don’t see any sign of a downturn. The consumer continues to be the driver for the economy, and has the ability and willingness to spend.”

To encourage consumers to spend, retailers will focus on how to innovate, drive efficiency and better service their customers. This will require retailers to contemplate how to invest more heavily in automation, and use it to get goods into consumers’ hands faster. chainstoreage.com

Training Staff to Be Better Interviewers
Many organizations take a team-based approach to hiring and for good reason. Gaining perspectives about job candidates from their potential co-workers can help avoid bias and blind spots. But it's rare for the non-HR employees participating in these panels to actually have experience in, or aptitude for, the interview process.

"Many organizations do not have a formal system where interviewers cohesively and completely share what they have learned in the interview, crippling the selection process," said David Lewis, CEO of OperationsInc., an HR consulting firm in Norwalk, Conn.

Why Interviewers Should Be Trained and Coached for the Role shrm.org

Walmart expands robots to 650 additional stores

Online retailer Casper plans 200 stores

Danish company Too Good To Go eyes new American front against global food waste

Facial Recognition Bans to Hit College Campuses?

Instacart workers organizing national boycott next week to reinstate a default 10% tip


Quarterly Results
Game Stop 9 week Holiday Sales - comp's down 24.7%, sales down 27.5%

Will This Be the Year of the Branded Cybercriminal?

Threat actors will continue to grow enterprise-style businesses that evolve just like their legitimate counterparts.

All businesses evolve and adapt to their environments. Businesses in the Dark Web are no exception. In the burgeoning and nearly unpoliceable business climate that is the Dark Web, it's only natural that businesses should become more "professional" — both in their revenue models and in their practices. We saw this happen in 2019 and expect even greater movement in this direction in 2020.

The "Servitization" of the Dark Web

Making money from stolen personal credentials via the Dark Web is pretty much de rigueur for would-be cybercriminals. Yet in the past, this process involved significant effort for the cybercriminal-to-be.

First, criminals needed to code or acquire a Trojan to use for infecting online banking portals or payment systems. Then they'd have to disseminate their malware and infect targets. Following the infection, they'd need to access all infected machines, harvest relevant data, and process it. Only then could they begin cashing out — selling stolen credentials or data via the Dark Web.

This process is now becoming astoundingly less complex — and infinitely more dangerous.

Servitization is the process of shifting from selling products to selling services that provide the outcomes those products deliver. This shift has transformed many above-board business models, and this same process will continue to spread across criminal networks this year and beyond. Today's cybercriminals are already buying and selling services rather than goods in the cybercrime financial ecosystem — and this trend will accelerate. darkreading.com


NRF 2020: CISOs Lament Talent Shortage
Security chiefs at retailers Target Corp., Best Buy Co. and Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. on Monday lamented the tough market for cybersecurity hiring while speaking on a panel at the National Retail Federation’s annual conference in New York.

They also outlined tactics they use for retaining high-performing security pros and seeding the sector with promising talent. “If we can’t get people we need, this is a really big deal,” said Adam Mishler, CISO at Best Buy (pictured center).

Because cybersecurity isn’t widely taught in colleges and universities, corporate CISOs have to be creative about the kind of professionals they seek, said Dave Estlick, CISO at Chipotle. Mr. Estlick (pictured right) joined Chipotle in December, after more than nine years in cybersecurity at Starbucks Corp.

Rather than require a certain number of years of security experience, he looks for problem-solvers. “I’m as likely to hire somebody with an economics degree as computer science,” he said, because both disciplines rely on the ability to see patterns.

Helping prospects see the excitement in cybersecurity is valuable, said Target CISO Rich Agostino (pictured left). He regularly talks to students in regions near the company’s Minneapolis headquarters office. “They think you’re sitting in front of a computer all day waiting for an alarm bell to go off,” he said. He explains how cybersecurity touches various technology and business positions and that security experts can have long-term careers.

Mr. Estlick said three tenets make for satisfied, loyal cybersecurity staffers: interesting work; an opportunity to learn from experts and, in turn, to become one; and fair compensation.

The executives counseled patience as the young discipline develops. After all, Mr. Agostino noted, his own position didn’t exist until relatively recently. “CISO weren’t even a thing 20 years ago.” cybersecurity.cmail19.com

NRF 2020: Retailers ponder cloud choices, Zebra launches SmartSight, Micro-markets in focus

Nutanix survey: Highlights the moving parts as retailers ponder hybrid cloud choices.
Zebra launches SmartSight, and Shekel Brainweigh is using Hitchi sensors for a micro-market called Capsule.

Retailers are increasingly opting for hybrid cloud deployments and often moving workloads from public clouds to their own data centers to repatriate data, according to research by Nutanix.

The findings offer a notable backdrop to the National Retail Federations annual conference in New York City. NRF 2020 this year features cloud providers pitching retailers as well as a bevy of technology providers offering tools to boost efficiency in an industry buffeted by competition from Amazon.

72% of retailers said they had moved or planned to move some public cloud applications back to on-premises infrastructure. Retailers from 2018 to 2019 increased their data center usage by 14%.

Retailers' ideal IT operating model revolved around hybrid cloud deployments. Retailers said they plan to increase hybrid cloud usage by 43% and multicloud usage by 10% in the nextfive5 years.

Agility was cited as the top reason for their deployment decisions followed by cost and end-user experiences. zdnet.com

Ransomware Victim’s Unusual Response: Legal Action Against Unknown Attackers

Ireland Injunction Blocked Website of Posted Stolen Data
Such a move could insulate victims from legal fallout after data breaches, experts say

Southwire confirmed it suffered a cyberattack in a Twitter post on Dec. 11. Southwire’s U.S. federal court complaint refers to “confidential business information and other sensitive information” that hackers accessed. The company took a two-step legal approach. It filed a complaint on Dec. 31 in a federal court in Georgia and is seeking damages from hackers. The lawsuit is against “John Doe” and states that Southwire is unaware of the defendant’s name.

Separately, Southwire obtained an emergency injunction the same day from an Irish judge, removing a public website, hosted by an Irish firm, where hackers had posted some of Southwire’s stolen data. The data was available for anyone else to see, and wasn’t hidden in a dark web forum. Hackers had also written on the website that they would publish more data if Southwire refused to pay a ransom. The website provider, World Hosting Farm Ltd., blocked the website address the day Southwire filed the injunction, World Hosting Farm Chief Executive Artur Grabowski said in an email.

Southwire decided on that strategy based on legal advice in the U.S. and Ireland, said Jason Pollard, vice president of talent acquisition and communications. “We feel this is the best way to mitigate further impact, and to do what is best for our company, employees and customers,” he said.

Lawyers and cybersecurity experts said it was the first time they had heard of a ransomware victim suing hackers for damages. But companies often seek injunctions after a data breach because doing so can help prove they tried to prevent the spread of stolen information, said Kenneth Dort, a partner in the Chicago office of law firm Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.

If personal information is exposed, companies could face lawsuits from individuals alleging their data wasn’t properly secured. Contractual agreements with business partners may specify how commercial information must be secured. wsj.com

Albany Airport Pays Off Sodinokibi Ransomware Gang: Report