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Getting Back to Basics with ePVM's

LPRC: Customers & Associates Feel Safer
LP Positively Impacting the Customer Experience

With the entire retail industry focused on re-defining and creating a unique customer experience that melds together the online and store environments, digital signage is destined to play a starring role in every aspect of retail. Once again, loss prevention has been leading the effort with Enhanced Public View Monitors (ePVMs) being one of the first interactive video monitors to show up in stores.

Certainly it's been a long and hard battle to gain the support and funding for what now is considered one of the basics in situational crime prevention. But with the Loss Prevention Research Council's (LPRC) ePVM impact study showing that customers "feel safer in stores with e/PVMs" it may be an opportune time to review and consider expanding the program. Especially with CBD products hitting the market.

With that in mind, there's also the opportunity to turn the entire program into a revenue generator with Media PVMs. Just like the EAS towers used for marketing, these media PVMs can be used for marketing as well. It really all depends on how good your selling skills are and how strong your relationships are in the organization.

With customer experience being the #1 driver right now, it all starts with customers feeling safer, and every retailer has to be focused on that goal.
 

RH-ISAC Announces Speakers for Retail Cyber Intelligence Summit
The Retail & Hospitality Information Sharing and Analysis Center (RH-ISAC) today announced the first speakers for its Retail Cyber Intelligence Summit taking place September 24-25, 2019 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Denver, Colorado.

This unique event is tailored for strategic leaders and cybersecurity practitioners from both physical and online retailers, gaming properties, grocers, hotels, restaurants, consumer product manufacturers and cybersecurity industry partners. The conference offers the opportunity to exchange ideas among peers through collaborative discussions and practical cybersecurity talks. This year’s conference theme is “Protect as One.”

"The rise of online shopping and e-commerce makes us all susceptible to fraud, especially in the retail and hospitality sectors," said Suzie Squier, president, RH-ISAC. "We are excited about the line-up of speakers that we have on the agenda for our summit. The sessions being presented will not only offer cyber-attack techniques, but guidelines on how we can make significant changes to improve the current state of threat intelligence and cybersecurity."

The full conference agenda and information on how to register is available here.  rhisac.org

Huawei products riddled with backdoors, zero days and critical vulnerabilities
Huawei’s problems keep piling up as a security firm specializing in IoT devices found numerous vulnerabilities across the company’s entire product line. Finite State said it scanned more than 1.5 million files embedded within nearly 10,000 firmware images supporting 558 products looking for risks including hard-coded backdoor credentials, unsafe use of cryptographic keys, indicators of insecure software development practices, and the presence of known and 0-day vulnerabilities.

The primary finding being 55 percent of the devices had at least one backdoor primarily in the form of in hard-coded, default user accounts and passwords along with several types of embedded cryptographic keys. However, Finite State also found on average 102 known vulnerabilities associated with each firmware, many rated critical or high, along with hundreds of potential zero day issues. scmagazine.com

Federal Agencies’ Cybersecurity Failures Leaving Americans’ Personal Information at Risk
U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-OH) and Tom Carper (D-DE) published a report that documents the failure of eight federal agencies, over the course of two administrations, to address vulnerabilities in their IT infrastructure, leaving Americans’ sensitive and personal information unsafe and vulnerable to theft.

The Subcommittee reviewed 10 years of Inspectors General reports on compliance with federal information security standards for the Department of Homeland Security and seven other federal agencies: (1) the Department of State; (2) the Department of Transportation; (3) the Department of Housing and Urban Development; (4) the Department of Agriculture; (5) the Department of Health and Human Services; (6) the Department of Education; and (7) the Social Security Administration. These seven agencies were cited by OMB as rating the lowest with regard to cybersecurity practices. The report details how each of these agencies failed to comply with basic cybersecurity protocols. It also includes a number of recommendations to address those failures.

The report documents that since 2011, the Department of Education has been unable to prevent unauthorized outside devices from easily connecting to the agency’s network. In its 2018 audit, the IG found the agency had managed to restrict unauthorized access to 90 seconds, but explained that this was enough time for a malicious actor to “launch an attack or gain intermittent access to internal network resources that could lead to” exposing the agency’s data. securitymagazine.com

Breaking the Endless Cycle of 'Perfect' Cybercrimes
Regardless of their methods, hackers are constantly attempting to improve upon what is essentially a perfect crime — a crime that is simple to execute, is performed with near total anonymity, and, most of all, pays off. These have been the hallmarks of successful crimes and criminals for generations, and it's no surprise that the newest generation of criminals would embrace them as well.

If the perfect crime formula remains the same regardless of the actual crime committed, so does the fact that hackers are exploiting persistent weaknesses and blind spots within the enterprise. If organizations moved faster to identify and respond to these exposures, they'd create an attack environment that was more complex, less profitable, and more likely to expose the attacker. Here are two classic flaws — and recommendations on fixing them. darkreading.com

How E-Commerce Sites Manipulate You Into Buying Things You May Not Want
When potential customers visit the online resale store ThredUp, messages on the screen regularly tell them just how much other users of the site are saving.

“Alexandra from Anaheim just saved $222 on her order” says one message next to an image of a bright, multicolored dress. It’s a common technique on shopping websites, intended to capitalize on people’s desire to fit in with others and to create a “fear of missing out.”

But “Alexandra from Anaheim” did not buy the dress. She does not exist. Instead, the website’s code pulled combinations from a preprogrammed list of names, locations and items and presented them as actual recent purchases.

The fake messages are an example of “dark patterns,” devious online techniques that manipulate users into doing things they might not otherwise choose to. They are the digital version of timeworn tactics used to influence consumer behavior, like impulse purchases placed near cash registers, or bait-and-switch ads for used cars.

The prevalence of dark patterns across the web is unknown, but in a study released this week, researchers from Princeton University have started to quantify the phenomenon, focusing first on retail companies. The study is the first to systematically examine a large number of sites. The researchers developed software that automatically scanned more than 10,000 sites and found that more than 1,200 of them used techniques that the authors identified as dark patterns, including ThredUp’s fake notifications.

The report coincides with discussions among lawmakers about regulating technology companies, including through a bill proposed in April by Senators Deb Fischer, Republican of Nebraska, and Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, that is meant to limit the use of dark patterns by making some of the techniques illegal and giving the Federal Trade Commission more authority to police the practice. nytimes.com

Google Play Spotted With More Than 2,000 Malware-Laden Counterfeit Apps: Report
In the latest damning report about the state of Google Play, researchers claim to have found there are over 2,000 malware-laden apps present on Google Play, all of which are copycats of some of the most popular apps out there.

The investigation was done by the researchers using neural networks, and found that there were many apps with visually similar icons to 10,000 of the most popular apps on Google Play, and also partially plagiarised their text descriptions.

These counterfeit apps were checked if they contain malware using the private API of online malware analysis tool, VirusTotal. Over 7,000 of these apps were found to contain malware in at least one parameter. ndtv.com

IRCE: The Amazon vendor purge is coming 'very soon'

How Amazon benefits from counterfeit books

Walmart reveals it's planning an Amazon Prime Day counterattack with thousands of deals

NYC, NY: Credit Card Fraud Ring used composite identities to steal $3 million from banks
The credit cards were real, but the people who got the bills were fake. Nearly a dozen fraudsters from Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx used “synthetic” identities to make about $3 million in credit card charges, and never paid the banks holding their debts. The 11 suspects charged in Brooklyn federal court Wednesday mixed and matched real names, social security numbers and dates of birth to create fake identities, then applied for credit cards and started charging on them, federal prosecutors claim.

They often used shell companies to write checks into bogus accounts in order to up the credit limits on the ill-gotten cards and to make fraudulent repayments on line-of-credit accounts, prosecutors said. Several of the suspects used what’s referred to as a “credit card bust-out scheme,” working with merchants who let them make fraudulent charges in exchange for a 10 % to 25 % cut of the money. They used the money to pay EZ-Pass bills, mortgages, car loans, airline tickets and other items, prosecutors alleged. nydailynews.com

Sarasota, FL: Sarasota County Sheriff's Office bust 14 in Sarasota retail theft sting
Thirteen adults and one juvenile were arrested by Sarasota County sheriff’s deputies following the latest retail theft operation conducted by investigators. More than 200 arrests have been made since 2013 in various sting operations targeting retail theft. During the latest operation, deputies focused on retail corridors stretching from Sarasota to Venice, according to a press release issued Tuesday. “It is concerning to me that despite the amount of proactive law enforcement we conduct, criminals still think they can prey on local retailers,” Sheriff Tom Knight said in a prepared statement. “Our deputies commonly saturate heavily populated commercial areas thanks to our established partnerships with the retail community, but it doesn’t seem to matter. bradenton.com

Atlanta, GA: 3 Sought for Theft of $12,000 in merchandise from Kroger Stores
Three men made off with nearly $5,000 worth of merchandise during a June 8 trip to the Kroger in the Edgewood retail district. They allegedly pulled off an even bigger heist worth $7,000 two days before at another Kroger on Glenwood Avenue. The stolen merchandise included soap, deodorant, meat, beer and household items, police posted to Facebook.

It took the men about an hour from the time they entered the store at 10:35 p.m. to the time they left. In the Glenwood Avenue theft, two men were seen on store surveillance cameras leaving an emergency door on the side of the building with shopping carts loaded down. The employee said the same men may be involved in other shoplifting incidents at Kroger locations in the Wesley Chapel area of DeKalb County. wsbradio.com

Novato, CA: Bad Timing for 2 Sephora Shoplifters
The case involved the Sephora store in the Vintage Oaks Shopping Center. A police detective went there Wednesday morning for followup investigation on a theft that happened there on June 12. While the detective was in the back office, a pair of thieves entered the store and started loading cosmetics into bags, the police department said. Employees recognized them as the thieves from previous incidents at Sephora. One employee confronted the thieves while another alerted the police investigator. The shoplifters fled with the merchandise. Central Marin Police stopped the car after spotting it on southbound Highway 101. Police found merchandise from Sephora in the car. Two teenage women were arrested on suspicion of burglary, theft and conspiracy. “Gates, the female juvenile, and other suspects yet-to-be identified are believed to be responsible for several other burglaries at cosmetic stores in Novato and the Bay Area,” the police department said. marinij.com

New South Wales, Australia: Police uncover $25,000 of stolen beauty products, baby formula and drugs
Two people have been arrested after police seized $25,000 worth of stolen beauty products and drugs from a home and storage unit in southwest Sydney. Police allege the man, 33, and the woman, 74, were involved in the theft and resale of stolen goods, which included beauty and personal hygiene products, multi vitamins and baby formula. Photos of the seized items show tubs of Loreal, Olay and Nivea skin creams, Voltaren pain relief gels, baby formula and other beauty and health products, which police allege were shoplifted. Police also allege they seized illicit substances including cannabis, methylamphetamine and cocaine. The estimated value of the items is $25,000. news.com.au

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The drive home can be the longest drive of the day when looking into the rear-view mirror and seeing nothing but the day's events. It is a great time for reflection and evaluation of all that transpired over the last 12 hours, often times allowing you to realize that the briefest interaction with someone may have been the most important event of the day. Those one line snip-its often times are where the true feelings and intentions are expressed. Piecing them together can mean the difference between success and failure of a project, a program, and even an executive. It is only in reflection that we see the truth and give ourselves the ability to react to it the right way the next day. Take the time and look in the rear-view mirror. You may see something you had not seen.

Just a Thought,
Gus

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