Interface Systems Shares Best Practices with Retailers for Cybersecurity Month

Company highlights prevention strategies for securing POS, cloud-based applications, and mitigating loyalty program fraud

St. Louis, MO (October 4, 2022) — As retailers integrate their digital and physical shopping experiences to future-proof their business models, it’s never been more important to be aware of the cybersecurity vulnerabilities that can be created by digital transformation. As cybersecurity awareness month becomes a focus of discussion in October, Interface Systems, a leading managed service provider delivering business security, managed network, UCaaS, and business intelligence solutions to distributed enterprises, shares best practices on how to prevent retail cyber-attacks and mitigate fraud.

Read more in today's Vendor Spotlight column below
 

LPRC IMPACT Kicks off in Gainesville, FL
Original founders of LPRC recognized onstage.	STRATEGY @ IMPACT: Design-Thinking to Reduce Violence
Great crowd of AP/LP professionals at the  LPRC IMPACT opening reception	The LPRC IMPACT Welcome Kit
Click here to learn more about LPRC IMPACT

Retailers No Longer Shy Away from Talking About In-Store Theft
What all that stealing says about America

Is stealing from stores really increasing, and if so, by how much? Turns out hard data is tough to come by, but nationally, the problem might not be as bad as it seems.

Maybe those shocking organized theft videos or the railroad bandits of LA make the problem feel overblown. But I don’t think it’s that simple. First of all, a significant portion of retail crime goes unreported. Another point is that these are broad-brush numbers. While in some localities shoplifting rates are flat, in others, i.e., New York, San Francisco, they may be soaring.

'Organized retail crime has definitely been ticking up'

Who’s doing the stealing? “Three categories,” says Lisa LeBruno, senior executive vice president of the Retail Industry Leaders Association. “There’s the opportunistic shoplifter, the persistent habitual offender and then organized retail crime gangs or ORC,” she says.

What’s getting stolen? “CRAVED,” says Mark Mathews, vice president of research development and industry analysis at the National Retail Federation. “Which stands for items that are concealable, removable, available, valuable, enjoyable, and disposable.”

Companies used to be tight-lipped about thieving as it scares off Wall Street, customers and employees. Not so much anymore. “Organized retail crime has definitely been ticking up over the last few years,” says Mike Combs, director of asset protection, organized retail crime and central Investigations team at The Home Depot. “During the pandemic, many would have thought it may have gotten better, but it actually got worse. It certainly affects the bottom line.”

Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said on an earnings call last November that the pressure from retail theft was showing up in the company's financials, the Wall Street Journal reported. Rite Aid reported a tough quarter on Thursday and its stock plummeted 28% that day. The company said that store closures, driven in part by excessive theft, were a factor.

Also exacerbating the situation are some additional factors: The opioid crisis, a dearth of employees and now inflation. More stealing may make matters worse. Like so many things in America these days, our social contract doesn’t seem well distributed. finance.yahoo.com

States Across the Country Battling ORC
Op-Ed: Congressional action needed to combat organized retail crime

By Ellie Taylor is CEO of the Alabama Grocers Association

Although multiple states have taken steps toward addressing the pervasive issue that is organized retail crime, the plague continues to spread. These are sophisticated shoplifting rings that are able to turn a huge profit by selling items stolen in mass online to unsuspecting customers.

In Alabama, these organized efforts have cost both large and small businesses thousands of dollars, siphoning valuable resources away from hiring new employees and growing their storefronts. What’s even more concerning is that retail theft has escalated to physical violence.

As of this date, Congress has failed to take any action. However, Alabama’s State Legislature has already taken steps to address this issue through the passage of HB 318 this past January. The legislation enacted a more specific verification process for high-volume, third-party online sellers that sell online out of Alabama.

Meanwhile, other states across the country are passing their own pieces of legislation, each with slightly different compliance language. It’s time for our lawmakers in Washington to create a uniform standard. Come September, Congress has the opportunity to do so by passing the INFORM Consumers Act.

INFORM would tackle the chaos created by nationwide organized retail crime by implementing a direct, coherent, and straightforward approach that includes requiring online marketplaces to disclose the name, tax I.D., bank account information and contact information of certain high-volume, third-party sellers.

These simple requirements would disincentivize criminals from stealing in the first place while also ensuring online sellers are protected from burdensome regulations. yellowhammernews.com

Reversing the Damage of Progressive DAs
Op-Ed: Making New York’s criminal justice system work again
Legislators in Albany and City Hall, under the influence of activists, have undermined prosecutors’ and judges’ ability to protect the public. Some district attorneys have deprioritized or backed away from the prosecution of politically disfavored offenses. To make matters worse, judges face a confusing set of laws that prohibits them from considering dangerousness when making decisions on bail, leading some politicians to claim that they need to be “retrained.”

The consequences of the problem can be seen first and foremost in rising citywide crime rates, but also in a steady stream of horrific incidents in my home borough of Queens.

Over the past several years, our city has experienced double-digit increases in homicides, shootings, robberies, grand larcenies, hate crimes, and quality-of-life offenses (shootings and homicides are trending down compared to last year, but every other crime is up year-over-year, and all are up sharply since pre-pandemic). The human toll from this stark increase in crime is impossible to quantify and has led to a rising sense of fear and disorder, from our streets to our subways.

Through laws passed in Albany and decisions made by prosecutors and judges, this culture of accountability has been undercut. With little debate, leaders in the Legislature succumbed to political pressure to reform the system, passing sweeping and ill-conceived legislation that was crafted by advocates who were accountable to no one.

We need to recognize the mistakes that have been made and reverse them. The Legislature must act without delay. District attorneys must make it clear that their primary obligation is to protect public safety in the communities they were elected to serve. They must ensure that their constituents know that those who break the law will be held accountable. nydailynews.com

Macy's AP Accused of Framing NYPD Sergeant in Shoplifting Case
NYPD sergeant accused of shoplifting sues Macy’s for racial profiling, false arrest
An NYPD sergeant arrested for shoplifting in a Yonkers Macy’s is suing the department store giant, claiming security guards falsely arrested her and ruined her career.

In a lawsuit filed in Brooklyn Federal Court, Sgt. Eva Pena says she was a “loyal longtime customer” of Macy’s until Sept. 3, 2019, when store security and Yonkers police “falsely arrested her and is maliciously prosecuting her without having observed a crime committed in their presence.”

She claims in court papers she was targeted by store security guards because she is Dominican and that, although a store security guard followed her around the store and into both the changing rooms and bathrooms, no one ever saw her commit a crime.

Macy’s Asset Protection Officer Samantha Newton-Henry said during Pena’s department trial in July that she never saw Pena take the clothing that was later found in the cop’s bag, court documents cite. Nor was the theft caught on video.

Newton-Henry also claimed Pena signed a confession. Pena has accused the store’s asset protection staff of framing her, trying to shake her down and forging her signature on the confession. The shakedown allegations are not mentioned in Pena’s lawsuit. The criminal case against her is still pending in Westchester Criminal Court. nydailynews.com

Another City Battling ORC Surge
Colorado Springs Police Department Targets Rising Retail Crime
The Colorado Springs Police Department has identified an ongoing rise in retail crime across the City of Colorado Springs, although this situation is occurring across the entire nation. Law Enforcement has identified a nexus between retail theft cases and drug use, often tied to the Fentanyl crisis occurring in our community.

On September 22, 2022, Colorado Springs Police Department Divisional Detectives and Patrol Officers partnered with area retailers for a targeted Shoplifting Deployment. The deployment partnered with local loss prevention employees at various retail stores to identify in progress shoplifts and have law enforcement contact the shoplifters, detain, and arrest or cite the shoplifters when it applied. The goal of the targeted deployment was to address multiple shoplifting hot spots across the city.

During the targeted deployment, officers made eight total arrests and cleared four felony warrants, 5 misdemeanor warrants, and served two outstanding citations. Two of the arrests were for new felony level charges for possession of Fentanyl. coloradosprings.gov

Rite Aid Says Theft Is a Much Bigger Problem Than You Might Think

Police unions snub Letitia James, back GOP’s Michael Henry for NY AG

US: 98.2M Cases - 1M Dead - 95.2M Recovered
Worldwide: 623.8M Cases - 6.5M Dead - 604M Recovered

Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 362  
Law Enforcement Officer Deaths: 802

The COVID Impact: Walgreens Turns to Robots for Help
Walgreens Turns to Prescription-Filling Robots to Free Up Pharmacists
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. is turning to robots to ease workloads at drugstores as it grapples with a nationwide shortage of pharmacists and pharmacist technicians.

The nation’s second-largest pharmacy chain is setting up a network of automated, centralized drug-filling centers that could fill a city block. Rows of yellow robotic arms bend and rotate as they sort and bottle multicolored pills, sending them down conveyor belts. The company says the setup cuts pharmacist workloads by at least 25% and will save Walgreens more than $1 billion a year.

The ultimate goal: give pharmacists more time to provide medical services such as vaccinations, patient outreach and prescribing of some medications. Those services are a relatively new and growing revenue stream for drugstores, which are increasingly able to bill insurers for some clinical services.

Covid-19 increased the demands on pharmacies as they expanded into testing and vaccinations, putting pressure on staff and creating a shortfall of pharmacists that many chains have struggled to fill. Walgreens has reduced pharmacy hours at a third of its nearly 9,000 U.S. stores, and in some markets is offering signing bonuses of up to $75,000 to fill pharmacist jobs. wsj.com

'Twindemic' Coming this Winter?
Flu is expected to flare up in U.S. this winter, raising fears of a 'twindemic'
The flu virtually disappeared for two years as the pandemic raged. But influenza appears poised to stage a comeback this year in the U.S., threatening to cause a long-feared "twindemic."

While the flu and the coronavirus are both notoriously unpredictable, there's a good chance COVID cases will surge again this winter, and troubling signs that the flu could return too.

"This could very well be the year in which we see a twindemic," says Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease professor at Vanderbilt University. "That is, we have a surge in COVID and simultaneously an increase in influenza. We could have them both affecting our population at the same time." npr.org

Philadelphia health care workers say they experience violence and assaults ‘constantly’ while on the job

Australia: If you think scrapping COVID-19 isolation periods will get us back to work and past the pandemic, think again

Business Continuity/Crisis Management
Proactive - Reactive

Hurricane Ian Response & Recovery

(section sponsored by Genetec)

Crisis Management and Business Continuity Management:
Why Is It Often Confused?

The lack of ability to differentiate these two concepts will result in the content and execution of CM and BCM plans being unnecessarily overlapped.

Business Continuity Management (BCM)

Business Continuity (BC) Management or BCM is a holistic management process for identifying potential impacts from threats, and for developing response plans. The objective is to increase an organization’s resilience to business disruptions and to minimize the impact of such disruptions.

Crisis Management (CM)

Crisis Management or CM is the overall coordination of an organization's response to a crisis, in an effective, timely manner, with the goal of avoiding or minimizing damage to the organization's profitability, reputation, or ability to operate.

What is Crisis Management Vs Business Continuity Management?

During a crisis, your organization is expected to execute the crisis management plan and during a disaster, the business continuity plan. The decision making process for the handling of the crisis or disaster is shouldered by the senior management team. The execution of the necessary crisis response and should there be a denial of access to the "people, process and infrastructure, "the recovery activities in accordance with recovery strategies and business continuity plans will be executed.

What is confusing is the overlapping of activities for the crisis response and continuity of operations. It is good to start any discussion from the definition of a crisis and disaster. The question to ask when the incident occur, "Is this a crisis or a disaster?" blog.bcm-institute.org

The Historic Economic Toll of Hurricane Ian
Hurricane Ian could cause $75 billion in damage

The best-case-scenario for damage is $66 billion, a data firm said.

In all, the economic damage wrought by the hurricane could reach up to $75 billion, according to a projection released on Saturday by data firm Enki Research, which studies the financial impact of storms.

The estimate put the best-case scenario for storm damage at $66 billion, Enki Research said. The median projection of cost amounts to $71 billion, according to computer models used by the data firm. Hurricane Ian will be among the 10 costliest storms in U.S. history, Enki Research said, adding that it may end up among the five costliest after the damage is fully assessed.

However, the projected costs for Hurricane Ian would amount to less than half of the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina, which totaled $161 billion. Hurricane Ian demolished homes and businesses, damaged infrastructure like roads and bridges and harmed citrus fruit trees that make up a key industry in the state. abcnews.go.com

Four suspects busted for allegedly looting in Florida after Hurricane Ian
The four suspects were charged with burglarizing an unoccupied structure after Hurricane Ian slammed Florida

Lee County Sheriff Warns Zero Tolerance For Looting After Ian

Martin County Sheriff's Rapid Response Team on looting patrols in Charlotte County

2 Walmart & Sam's Club Stores Still Closed From Hurricane Ian  

Resources Available for Businesses Impacted by Hurricane Ian

Business Recovery Center set to open in Tampa to help those impacted


In Case You Missed It: LP/AP Leaders Lead Natural Disaster Response Efforts

Marvin Ellison, CEO of Lowe's at NRF LP Conf. 2010:
Home Depot's AP Team Excelled During Katrina

Marvin Ellison, current Lowe's CEO - who started his retail career at Target in AP in 1987, progressing to EVP at The Home Depot in 2002 and then CEO at JCPenney in 2014 - spoke at NRF PROTECT in 2010 and said that Hurricane Katrina in 2005 is where the Home Depot Asset Protection Team truly excelled and led the organization as the HD first responders, so to speak, and did an incredible job, going above and beyond and establishing creditability and corporate-wide recognition. It's where the HD AP team stood up and led the entire organization during a historic natural disaster.


Retail & Government Operations Centers

● National Business Emergency Operations Center
● Florida State Emergency Operations Center
● Lee County - SW Florida Operations Center
● Walmart Emergency Operations Center
● Amazon's Disaster Relief Hub
● Target Emergency Operations Center
● Home Depot's Natural Disaster Command Center
● Lowe's Emergency Command Center
● Microsoft Teams Emergency Operations Center
 

Most At-Risk Retailers
Retailers at risk of bankruptcy as consumers tighten wallets in 2022

As demand wavers and capital gets harder to find, some could face default and bankruptcy, including last year’s digital darlings.

This time last year the retail companies that carried the very lowest FRISK scores, indicating the highest risk of bankruptcy, numbered just three. As of Sept. 30 this year, the number had surged to 18, a cohort size much more in line with pre-pandemic risk levels.

Of that, nine retailers had a FRISK score of 1, indicating a 9.99% to 50% chance of filing for bankruptcy within the next 12 months. Another nine had a FRISK score of 2, representing a 4% to 9.99% chance of bankruptcy by CreditRiskMonitor’s calculations.

FRISK scores only cover those companies with publicly traded stocks or bonds. Credit ratings and other measures of default risk turn up other names as well. Those with the lowest ratings from Creditntell include, as of July, Tuesday Morning, Party City, GameStop, Rite Aid, Bed Bath & Beyond, Casper and Joann.

Meanwhile, Fitch Ratings’ most recent lists of loans of concern include a handful of retailers, including Belk, Men’s Wearhouse, Boardriders and Premier Brands Group (a reorganized incarnation of the old Nine West Holdings). retaildive.com

CFOs Feeling the Heat
80% of CFOs Expect Cost Pressures to Persist Into Next Year: Weekly Stat

Increased costs and poor labor pools are proving to be difficult challenges to CFOs, according to the Richmond Fed survey.

The share of firms with abnormally large increases in the majority of their costs doubled since the second quarter of last year, from 26% to more than 52%. More than 80% of firms expect cost pressures to persist into next year, and around a third expect these pressures to last longer than a year.

More than half (55%) of respondents said their spending increased in the last 90 days. Yet despite having to spend more to maintain status-quo, over two-thirds (68%) of CFOs expressed optimism in their own company’s future.

Data shows more than half (53%) of financial executives reported having an abnormally large increase in a majority of their costs, an indication that companies are spending more to get the same results. More than half (58%) of respondents told surveyors that it was harder to find skilled employees now than at the beginning of the year. As workers are demanding benefits including flexible working conditions, balances between work and leisure, and higher compensation packages, finance teams across the board face myriad challenges to hire the right people. cfo.com

Union Retaliation Fears
Starbucks workers have unionized at record speed; many fear retaliation now
This month, workers from hundreds of unionized Starbucks stores are expected to sit down for collective bargaining for the first time, while others will vote in still more union elections to come.

So far, more than 300 Starbucks stores in close to three dozen states have had union elections — a stunning number, given not a single company-owned store had a union at this time last year. Even more remarkable is that 80% of them, or around 245 stores, have gone in favor of forming a union.

Even at unionized stores, fear of retaliation is prevalent

Meanwhile, those still pushing for a union at Starbucks say they remain fearful that they could lose their jobs at any time.  Workers United says Starbucks has fired more than 100 union leaders. Federal labor officials investigating the dismissals have concluded that some employees were indeed wrongfully terminated, including seven in Memphis. npr.org

Why inflation is great news for Chipotle, Olive Garden, Aldi, and Walmart

California law forces most companies to provide salary info in job ads