Agilence Wins 3rd Stevie Award for Customer Service Department of the Year

Watch 'The Most Interesting Man in the World' Congratulate Agilence in a Video

The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are the world’s top honors for customer service, contact center, business development, and sales professionals. Agilence recently won a Bronze Stevie® Award for Customer Service Department of the Year at the 14th annual Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

They had "The Most Interesting Man in the World", famous for the Dos Equis beer commercials, film a shout-out to the Agilence team, congratulating them on their success. Watch the video here!

Coronavirus Update

Security's Role - Huge Impact on Video Surveillance Industry

1st Mall Disruption - REI Shuts Washington HQ - Twitter Sends Employees Home

First Coronavirus Mall Disruption:
San Antonio North Star Mall reopens after infected coronavirus evacuee visited shopping center

San Antonio mall closed for deep cleaning after visit from coronavirus evacuee who tested positive for COVID-19

North Star Mall has reopened following a deep cleaning after a woman “visited our shopping center and was later found to have tested positive for the coronavirus,” according to the mall’s Facebook page.

North Star Mall closed on Monday for 24 hours after officials were notified of the woman’s visit.

“The San Antonio Metro Health District has stated this individual was not exhibiting any symptoms and is considered to be relatively low risk to the public,” officials for the shopping center said in a Facebook post Monday.

The woman was evacuated from Wuhan, China, in early February and met the criteria for release after testing negative for the COVID-19 coronavirus twice. A separate lab test that was pending when she was released revealed a positive test result.

According to the North Star Mall Facebook page, a “few stores will have delayed openings.”

The woman was re-isolated after spending 12 hours in the San Antonio community where she visited the mall for around two hours and also checked into a hotel near San Antonio International Airport.

Officials with the shopping center said San Antonio Metro Health District maintained that the risk to the public “is considered to be relatively low.” ksat.com

ASIS Magazine Lead Article This Month
In a Pandemic, Preparation Hinges on Prevention

No Country is Fully Prepared for Pandemics & All Have Gaps

Infectious diseases know no borders. So says the first Global Health Security (GHS) Index, a benchmarking assessment of health security and related capabilities across 195 countries, released in October 2019. The GHS Index produced alarming results—in measuring countries’ abilities to prevent, detect, and respond to infectious disease threats, the average global score was a mere 40.2 out of 100. Unpreparedness stretched across all income levels as well; among the 60 high-income countries assessed, the score climbed to just 51.9.

According to the report, “national health security is fundamentally weak around the world. No country is fully prepared for epidemics or pandemics, and every country has important gaps to address.”

The GHS Index also rated countries individually based on six factors: prevention of the emergence or release of pathogens; early detection and reporting for epidemics of potential international concern; rapid response to and mitigation of the spread of an epidemic; sufficient and robust health system to treat the sick and protect health workers; commitments to improving national capacity, financing, and adherence to norms; and overall risk environment and country vulnerability to biological threats.

Across those metrics, the most prepared countries overall include the United States, the United Kingdom, The Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and Thailand.

The Index also recommended strengthening information-sharing channels between veterinary, wildlife, and public health professionals and policymakers. Considering that direct contact with animals may be a risk factor for many serious diseases, such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), this level of communication is essential, especially for new or novel viruses. In late 2019 and early 2020, Chinese authorities linked the emergence of a new strain of coronavirus-triggered pneumonia to a seafood and live animal market in Wuhan, in central China.

“When it comes to continuity planning, businesses think through fires, floods, and IT disruptions, but they don’t consider the flu,” Hauer says. asisonline.org

Editor's Note: Great article on how a Global Security Advisor and his security team played a critical role in helping to contain and stop the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria and Senegal.

Research Shows Coronavirus Could Disrupt the Video Surveillance Market

90% of Global Production & 25% of Global Revenue

Although the coronavirus outbreak has had only a minimal impact on the video surveillance market so far, the industry still faces a risk from falling demand and a potential production bottleneck spurred by labor and component shortages in China, according to research from Omdia, a global technology research company.

Production of video surveillance equipment is heavily concentrated in China, with the country accounting for 90 percent of the global production of video surveillance cameras, and 45 percent of worldwide global market revenue in 2019. As a result, any coronavirus-related disruption to production, supply chains or workforces in the country could have a significant impact for a global video surveillance market, which totaled to $19.9 billion in 2019.

“Given China’s status as the world’s largest producer and consumer of video surveillance cameras, the country wields a proportionately massive influence on the global market for these products,” said By Tommy Zhu, senior analyst, video surveillance, Omdia. “Video surveillance equipment suppliers in China currently are contending with reduced production because of a lack of manpower and delays following the Lunar New Year. sdmmag.com

Coronavirus in N.Y.: Outbreak Will Spread in City, Officials Warn

'Impossible' to contain in the short term

New York officials warned on Monday that the coronavirus was likely to spread in New York City, a day after confirming that a Manhattan woman had contracted the virus while traveling in Iran and was now isolated in her home.

“Community spread is going to be real,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said at a news conference, alongside Mayor Bill de Blasio. “That is inevitable.”

The coronavirus had landed in Manhattan was sure to raise the level of anxiety across this dense city, where people spend their days in close quarters. By rush hour on Monday morning, every cough or sneeze on the subway sounded a little louder and closer than it did last week. A few people wore surgical masks; one woman held the end of a paisley scarf to her mouth and nose.

Mr. Cuomo also said the state would institute new cleaning protocols in crowded public places, including schools and busses. “If it smells like bleach when you get on a bus or when a child goes to school, it is not bad cologne,” he said. “It is bleach.” He said that the public health system was focused on reducing the spread of the virus, but suggested that eliminating it in New York was likely to prove impossible in the short term. nytimes.com

'Cryptic Transmission'
Genetic analysis suggests coronavirus infections double every six days,
spreading to hundreds
An evolutionary analysis based on the genome sequences of COVID-19 coronavirus samples taken from patients in the Seattle area suggests that the number of infections doubles roughly every six days, which translates into hundreds of infections over the course of the past six weeks.

The analysis laid out in a series of tweets from Trevor Bedford, a researcher at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center who specializes in the study of viral dynamics, concludes that many more people are likely to be part of a chain of infections leading from the first patient in the U.S. to be diagnosed with the virus. Some probably passed along the virus even though they didn’t know they were infected — a phenomenon known as “cryptic transmission.” geekwire.com

Twitter told its 5,000 employees to work from home because of the coronavirus

Don't Come In, Please

Over the last few days, a number of Silicon Valley companies have been coping with the virus’s incursion into their workforces. Two Amazon employees based in Italy have contracted the coronavirus, and Facebook has reportedly advised its employees to “feel free” to work from home.

But Twitter went a step further on Tuesday.

“Beginning today, we are strongly encouraging all employees globally to work from home if they’re able,” the company said in a blog post. “Our goal is to lower the probability of the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus for us — and the world around us. We are operating out of an abundance of caution and the utmost dedication to keeping our Tweeps healthy.”

The company said that US offices would still be open for employees who feel the need to come in person. vox.com

Airport Shops Suffer ‘Crisis’ as Coronavirus Upends Travel
Airport retail at some of the major Asian hubs has tumbled 60% to 70%, according to the Moodie Davitt Report, a travel retail-intelligence service provider.

Airport foot traffic in San Francisco fell 15% in February, compared with a year earlier, and declined 20% at Los Angeles International Airport, according to geolocation data platform Advan Research.

At Terminal 1 of New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport, food-court vendors and retailers such as Hudson News said daily revenues have fallen as much as 50% in recent weeks as passenger traffic has plunged. wsj.com

REI Shuts Washington State Campuses After Potential Virus Exposure
Retailer to do a deep clean of buildings before workers return

Online shopping surges as coronavirus spreads, raising concerns about delivery workers

ASIS Disease Outbreak Security Resources

Washington, Florida Governors Declare State of Emergency for Coronavirus

Five Dallas Police Officers Sent Home After Arresting Man Being Watched for Coronavirus

Close to a Million in U.S. Could Be Tested for Coronavirus This Week

Las Vegas store shelves emptied as shoppers take precautions against coronavirus

‘Where Do I Find Your Hand Sanitizer?’ Sorry, We Have None.
 

In Case You Missed It
Q4 & 2019 Retail Violent Fatalities Report

Up 33%

Up 20%

• Fatalities Up 33% since 2016
• Incidents up 20% since 2016
• Flat Over 2018
 

Europol's EC# / European Cybercrime Center Releases
J-CAT / Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce Update & Activities

Fighting Cybercrime in Europe and Beyond

The Joint Cybercrime Action Taskforce (J-CAT) is a 24/7 permanent taskforce, operating from Europol headquarters together with the European Cybercrime Centre. It helps fight cybercrime within and outside the EU.

Objective
J-CAT's objective is to drive intelligence-led coordinated actions against key cybercrime threats and targers. This is done by facilitating the join identification, prioritization, initiation and execution of cross-border investigations and operations by its partners.

Read More About J-CAT's Organization & 2019 Operations

How Target evolved its threat hunting program: 3 key steps

Target decided to re-evaluate its successful threat hunting program and found it could do better. This is what they did.

Evolution of a mature threat hunting program
Target’s threat hunting program had been in place for five years when it decided to do a “soup to nuts” reworking of the program, the company's Principal Engineer of Cybersecurity David Bianco told attendees at the SANS Threat Hunting Summit in London last month.

Bianco said that Target’s previous program was mature enough to be able to collect and use a high volume of quality security data from around the enterprise to create new analysis procedures. He labeled this a level 3 on Sqrrl’s Cyber Hunting Maturity Model. “That is a great place to be,” he said. “Most hunting teams would kill to be able to say on this model, ‘We are definitely a level 3’.”

The goal was to get Target to level 4 on that maturity scale and move beyond human-scale detection and drive more automation in its security processes. “Organizations at this level are able to not only successfully find those new incidents,” said Bianco, “but the key difference is they treat their threat hunting program more as a driver for the improvement of their automated detection.”

How to assess your threat hunting program

Before upgrading a threat hunting program, it’s important to assess what’s working and what isn’t. At the start of the refresh Bianco spoke to key stakeholders to get their perspectives of the program. He asked the people running the threat hunting program, the executives who were sponsoring it, as well as those receiving the briefings from the team what was and wasn’t working. He also sought to identify if there were any goals they wanted to accomplish that they previously hadn’t thought possible.

Step 1: Focus the goals - Step 2: Ensure operational consistency - Step 3: Define the strategy

Self offers these key takeaways for companies looking to improve their current program:

• Hire full-time threat hunters.

• Give those hunters time to prepare before a hunt and document findings after a hunt.

• Ensure operational consistency and apply a proper strategy around what teams should be focusing on during hunts. csoonline.com

Over 40% of Privacy Compliance Technology Will Rely on Artificial Intelligence in the Next Three Years
Over 40% of privacy compliance technology will rely on artificial intelligence (AI) by 2023, up from 5% today, according to Gartner, Inc.

“Privacy laws, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), presented a compelling business case for privacy compliance and inspired many other jurisdictions worldwide to follow,” said Bart Willemsen, research vice president at Gartner.

At the forefront of a positive privacy user experience (UX) is the ability of an organization to promptly handle subject rights requests (SRRs). SRRs cover a defined set of rights, where individuals have the power to make requests regarding their data and organizations must respond to them in a defined time frame.

According to the 2019 Gartner Security and Risk Survey, many organizations are not capable of delivering swift and precise answers to the SRRs they receive. Two-thirds of respondents indicated it takes them two or more weeks to respond to a single SRR. Often done manually as well, the average costs of these workflows are roughly $1,400 USD, which pile up over time.

“The speed and consistency by which AI-powered tools can help address large volumes of SRRs not only saves an organization excessive spend, but also repairs customer trust,” said Mr. Willemsen. “With the loss of customers serving as privacy leaders’ second highest concern, such tools will ensure that their privacy demands are met.” marketwatch.com

How Security Leaders at Starbucks and Microsoft Prepare for Breaches

Executives discuss the security incidents they're most worried about and the steps they take to prepare for them.

This was the premise behind "Preparing and Responding to a Breach," a panel that took place at last week's RSA Conference in San Francisco. Security leaders from Starbucks, Microsoft, WhiteHat Security, and SecurityScorecard discussed the lessons they learned from the many breaches that took place in 2019 and how they plan to learn from these incidents to defend against threats of the future.

"The same things that are happening over and over again." What types of attacks were most frequent, he asked, and what did organizations learn from them?

As far as types of attacks we see, [they] generally tend to either be application security attacks, phishing attacks, misconfiguration of cloud environments, these kinds of things," said WhiteHat CTO Anthony Bettini. And while these threats are old news to security pros, his fellow panelists agreed they are also the ones organizations should have at top of mind for defensive strategies.

"The reason you keep hearing about phishing from speakers like us … it's not because we want to bore you with repetition," said Microsoft's cybersecurity field CTO Diana Kelley. "It's because phishing still works." Application vulnerabilities, misconfiguration, and phishing are the three areas where attackers are having the greatest success, which is why they should be prioritized.

"One thing I often see is the somewhat sophisticated criminal groups are starting to use the aftermath of breaches to do even more targeted social engineering or phishing attacks at scale," he explained. "It's not just the fact a breach occurred; it's that all of our company's data is somehow in there."

Credential reuse is a primary concern for Starbucks global CISO Andy Kirkland, who spoke to a concern prevalent in the retail and hospitality industries. "Whenever these credentials become available, we become a place where people want to see if they work," he said. The sharing of usernames and passwords across multiple platforms is "a big thing to watch" for companies. Cloud misconfigurations, which Kirkland calls "the rebranding of shadow IT," are another worry. darkreading.com

'Malware-free' attacks now most popular tactic amongst cybercriminals