Self-Checkout AI Goes Viral in News May 19th to May 31st Nationwide
HuffPo: Self-Checkout Headaches May Be Putting Walmart Workers too Close to Shoppers

“Concerned Home Office Associates” Group Contacts Wired

Emails show the retailer’s employees are worried that an AI-based system meant to prevent theft is undermining social distancing. “It’s a health issue,” said one.

Showing up in a Huffington Post article May 19th from the social distancing angle and then followed by a more pointed article in Wired on May 29th, about the false positives generated. And between May 29th and May 31st it went viral around the news world.

The Huffington Post article:

The artificial-intelligence-based system, developed by an Ireland-based company called Everseen, uses cameras to read the movements of customers, and determine if an item was bagged but not scanned at the self-checkout kiosk. It then alerts a self-checkout host to intervene and help the customer scan whatever was missed.

But that same system has now become a serious concern for some Walmart employees during the coronavirus pandemic. Emails reviewed by HuffPost show corporate employees discussing the system’s errors ― flagging legitimate scans as non-scans, and prompting workers to step in when they shouldn’t have to. They even wonder if the system should be shut down in the interests of social distancing, which would take away a backstop against theft.

A Walmart spokesperson said employees have been addressing safety issues throughout the pandemic, and the company does not believe the Everseen program to be a problem based on the data it has evaluated. The self-checkout kiosks, the spokesperson noted, are cleaned regularly and employees are provided with protective equipment like masks and gloves. Continue Reading

How to prepare for the assessments?
Security Career Paths: Preparing for Personality Assessments
Arguably, in the past some senior security roles were filled based more on who you know rather than what you know, so references and recommendations were much more crucial. Not to take away from them now to any extent.

However the world has changed and evolved, and few reputable companies still use the old format. Many have added more difficult steps, including challenging personality and cognitive ability assessments, which can catch even the most competent security professional off guard.

Why the Assessments?

A candidate’s performance on a formal assessment is another component to be evaluated during the hiring process. In general, an employer will give more weight to the results of formal assessments if the organization is hiring someone to actively lead change across the entire enterprise, rather than a caretaker manager who will mainly keep watch over the security department.

In part, this is because change agent managers will be working in a dynamic and sometimes tumultuous environment, and assessments can help measure if applicants can think on their feet and meet unexpected challenges. Employers do not want to hire someone who has topped out at their current level and who does not have the motivation to excel in a more demanding role. Nor do they want someone who cannot handle stress and accept feedback or who does not collaborate well with others.

A major reason that applicants for senior roles face more challenges is because human resource leaders know that about 80 percent of hiring mistakes are due to “inaccurate” interviews—interviews that failed to effectively assess if the candidate would be a good fit for the position. In addition, training and research firm Leadership IQ found that 46 percent of all new hires fail within 18 months.

Applicants should spend as much time preparing for assessments as they would creating a résumé and preparing for interviews. Good read from ASIS this month: asisonline.com
 

Senior LP & AP Jobs Market

Director of Security and Loss Prevention job posted for Anzar Enterprises in San Diego, CA
The main areas of responsibility include securing client property and company inventory, in addition to securing employee and client safety at all times. You will be responsible for developing and overseeing the operations of the new security and loss prevention department and will also recruit additional team members for program implementation.

Anzar Enterprises specializes in providing its valued clients with pawn loans secured primarily by gold jewelry and consumer electronics with 13 retail locations in San Diego.  indeed.com

 

Quarterly Results
Tilly's Q1 stores down 57.5%, digital sales up 54.2%, net sales down 40.7%
 

RH-ISAC 90-Day Complimentary Membership Offer

RH-ISAC is excited to offer a 90-day complimentary membership for retail, travel, and hospitality companies to join our highly active intelligence and information sharing community. This exclusive offer ends on June 30, so make sure to contact us today at membership@rhisac.org.

Join the strong community RH-ISAC has built to secure and protect the retail and hospitality sectors and the billions of people who rely on a stable, functioning system. rhisac.org

Best Practices
Managing an Agile Security Operations Program

An Interview with Ken Loisch, Conair Corp.’s Global Director of Information Security
and Compliance

Conair Company Profile: Annual Revenue $2.1BPrivate, Approx. 2,500 employees, Stamford, Conn.

Building and improving a security operations program is challenging at any company, and even more so when that program was previously only focused on compliance. When Ken Loisch, global director of information security and compliance at Conair Corporation, first started at Conair four years ago, he changed the way the organization viewed security. The program now includes full security oversight of all global operations as an extension of the IT department, including management technology security aspects such as email, network security, and firewall protection.

Ken’s expertise in communicating complex security information with all levels of management helped to alter the way the company viewed security and initiated a shift that has increased Conair’s overall security.

As part of the RH-ISAC Security Operations Working Group, Ken presented how he changed the status quo and improved the security operations program at Conair with us in an interview.

RH-ISAC: When you started at Conair, what were the biggest influences on your security program? What helped shape the way you made and still make decisions?

RH-ISAC: What are some capabilities that have helped you to navigate and build a ‘nimble’ security program, as you call it?

RH-ISAC: As a company with a small security team, do you outsource to supplement resource gaps?

RH-ISAC: How do you manage all your outsourced partners?

RH-ISAC: How do you staff your security program when you have a heavy focus on outsourcing?

RH-ISAC: Beyond outsourced expertise, what other outside influences and information help shape and develop Conair’s program?

RH-ISAC: In your presentation, you mention several security tools and vendor solutions. Do you stick with commercial tools, or does Conair utilize open source tools? What are the security tools you can’t live without?

RH-ISAC: Our final question for you. If you could go back and give yourself some advice on the day you took this executive-level job, what would you say? rhisac.org
 

What's next? CISOs weigh in on COVID’s long-term effects on security
As lockdowns ease, CISOs are looking ahead at how their teams operate and how they protect employees and assets. The most likely change is permanently supporting more work-at-home employees. According to a report released in April by (ISC)2, 96% of organizations had moved at least some of their staff to remote work, with nearly half of them shifting all employees out of the office.

Remote working will be permanent for some workers
A Gartner survey found three-quarters of businesses expect at least 5% of their workforce who previously worked in company offices will become permanent work-from-home employees after the pandemic ends.

COVID stay-at-home will have a long-term effect on the physical footprint of businesses, which will mean longtail effects for how CISOs manage people. “When we come back, everything is going to be different and I don't think the office is going to be in demand,” he says. “My company [was] looking to expand to a bigger office, and now they are asking if we need a big office.”

Long-term work-from-home security challenges
If working from home at scale is to become a permanent fixture for how companies operate, they will likely have to revaluate the risks brought by different people in different scenarios. Data Guardian saw an 80% increase in the egress of corporate data during the lockdown period, including a 123% increase in the volume of data moving to USB drives and a large spike in data uploaded to cloud storage services. According to a remote work study by BitGlass, user training, home network security, and personal devices are the three key security challenges organizations are currently facing, followed by sensitive data outside the corporate perimeter, a lack of visibility, and additional cost of new security solutions or licenses.

A Dimensional Research report found over half of organizations have begun identifying new tools to address the post-COVID-19 environment and 42% are investing in staff training for the new skills required to adapt to the new normal. However, despite these increased risks, CIO’s COVID-19 impact study suggest that digital transformation and user experience are higher priorities than security for CIOs. CISOs might need to work hard with the business to ensure security is taken seriously moving forward.

“A good leadership team recognizes that these scenarios cause additional risk and it’s a collaborative effort between the leadership teams and the cyber security team to find a compromise where required.,”

Culture change requires CISOs to lead - Rethinking the security workforce csoonline.com

Not all IT budgets are being cut, some are increasing
Analytics & Cloud Dominate Budgets
Even with the economic challenges that COVID-19 has posed for businesses, almost 38 percent of enterprises are keeping their IT budgets unchanged (flat) or actually increasing them.

Yellowbrick Data received responses from more than 1,000 enterprise IT managers and executives, uncovering their infrastructure priorities during this era of economic uncertainty and disruption.

“The survey brought to light some trends that we have been noticing recently related to the speed at which companies are moving to the cloud and investing in analytics. In fact, more than half of enterprises are accelerating their move to the cloud in light of COVID-19 challenges to their businesses,” said Jeff Spicer, CMO for Yellowbrick Data.

“But what really stands out is that nearly 55 percent of enterprises are looking at a hybrid cloud strategy with a combination of cloud and on-premises solutions. That clearly shows that a cloud-alone strategy is not what most enterprises are looking for—and validates what our customers are telling us about their own best practices combining cloud and on-prem approaches to their biggest data infrastructure challenges.”

For almost two-thirds of respondents, investments in analytical infrastructure are important, with 27 percent investing a lot more and an additional 37 percent investing somewhat more. helpnetsecurity.com

New Threat: Pay Up or We Auction It
REvil Ransomware Gang Auctioning Off Stolen Data

First Batch of Hacked Data Posted; More Auctions Threatened

The REvil ransomware gang has created a darknet auction site for stolen data, according to the security firm Emsisoft.

The auction site, which REvil - also known as Sodinokibi - announced earlier this week, is offering data that the gang claims was taken from Canadian agricultural company Agromart Group. The REvil gang is threatening to offer more data for sale to the highest bidder in the coming weeks.

The opening price for the company's data is listed at $50,000, and it can be paid in the monero digital currency ZDNet reports.

The addition of an auction site is the latest development in how ransomware gangs are leaking data to force more victims to pay a ransom, says Brett Callow, a threat analyst at Emsisoft. govinfosecurity.com

Oakland, CA: Well-coordinated thieves capitalize on protest chaos
Police in a small San Francisco Bay Area community were about to help authorities in neighboring Oakland keep the peace during a protest when a more pressing crisis hit home: groups of thieves were pillaging malls, setting fire to a Walmart and storming a car dealership. “It was very strategic,” Sgt. Ray Kelly of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office said about the auto thefts and other recent heists.

The brazen heist, carried out by well-coordinated criminals, was one of many thefts nationwide the last week at big box electronics stores, jewelry shops and luxury designers. Many of the smash-and-grab thefts have happened during or following protests over the death of George Floyd.

Caravans of burglars have capitalized on chaos, communicating with each other via messaging apps during heists and using both the protests and other tactics to throw police off their trail. While opportunists have sometimes joined the frenzy, police and experts say there is a sophistication that suggests a level of planning that goes beyond spontaneous acts. kmph.com

New York, NY: Stolen U-Haul truck used by looter in New York City
At least one ambitious New York City looter used a stolen U-Haul truck to transport looted merchandise, officials said Wednesday. Mayor Bill de Blasio and NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea insisted that thousands of peaceful protesters, decrying the death of George Floyd, outnumber a handful of criminals, citing as example the a looter who was using a hot truck. "The U-Haul truck, that did happen," Shea told reporters. "We see a number of vehicles to transport stolen property, to scout out locations, to transport people to commit these crimes. So vehicles is not rare, the U-Haul truck aspect is more of an aberration." nbcnews.com

Los Angeles, CA: Can sneaker resellers stop looters from profiting?
High-end sneakers and other luxury goods have been targets of choice for thieves amid the unrest in cities across the nation on recent nights, as small groups of troublemakers took advantage of mostly peaceful demonstrations protesting the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, while in Minneapolis police custody. But those seeking to profit from the sale of stolen goods might struggle, as the businesses responsible for moving most of the merchandise in the $2 billion sneaker resale market said they would be alert to anyone listing suspect goods on their platforms.

“One of our top priorities is to ensure there is trust and safety in the sneaker industry,” said Matt Cohen, vice president of business development and strategy for the GOAT online marketplace and Flight Club sneaker consignment chain, which merged in 2018. Flight Club’s North Fairfax Avenue location was among the stores picked over by thieves, as was the competing Cool Kicks store on Melrose Avenue. The biggest sneaker resale platforms, including StockX, and online marketplaces such as Ebay said they already were on the lookout for illegally obtained merchandise. santamariatimes.com

Charleston, SC: Police charge woman accused of stealing from businesses during Charleston riot
Investigators have charged a 19-year-old woman accused of stealing from two businesses during a riot in Charleston on Saturday night. The Charleston Police Department charged Emma Waters with two counts of second-degree violent burglary. Her charges stem from burglaries at the Las Olas clothing store on King Street and the King Street Grocery store. Officials reported that the damage to the business and the merchandise taken totaled $25,000. wbtv.com

Scottsdale, AZ: 8 more charged or arrested in business damage, burglary in Scottsdale; Police recover $46,000 of stolen goods

Boston, MA: $100,000 Worth of Cannabis Stolen From Massachusetts' First Black-Owned Marijuana Shop During Protests

Johannesburg, South Africa: Thieves tunnel into liquor store, steal booze worth $18,000