More than 300 attendees and vendors turned out for the Coalition of Law Enforcement and Retail's 10th Annual Training Conference in San Diego, Calif. from Oct. 28 through Oct. 31.

On day one, attendees heard from a large host of industry experts on "violent crime" who discussed timely topics, including Growing Trends in Retail Armed Robberies & Violent Crimes, National Violent Crime Statistics (Retail), and Lessons from An Active Shooter with Rite Aid VP of AP Cathy Langley. Award winners were also named.

On day two, the focus was partnering in investigations, with multiple value-packed breakout sessions led by industry experts and leaders, including Assemblyman Jim Cooper & DA Anne Marie Schubert who presented on the new ballot initiative, KeepCalSafe.org.

CLEAR's Board of Directors

Lessons from an Active Shooter event
with Rite Aid VP AP

Jim Cooper & Anne Marie Schubert
present on KeepCalsafe.org

CLEAR Leadership Event: Women in Leadership

Click here and here to see more highlights from the value-packed event.

The 2019 Security 500 Rankings
Which security programs are taking the lead? These 500 enterprises have been ranked through metrics to determine the forerunners in 20 sectors.

Retail/Restaurants (Company Name & Security 500 Member)

1. Starbucks Corp. - Garrett Petraia, Vice President, Global Security and Resilience
2. L Brands, Inc. - John Talamo, Senior Vice President, Asset Protection
3. Under Armour, Inc. - Fred Bealefeld, Vice President; Chief Global Security Officer
4. Abercrombie & Fitch - Shane P. Berry, Group Vice President of Asset Protection
5. Brinker International, Inc. - Bill Heine, Chief Security Officer
6. Big Y Foods, Inc. - Mark Gaudette, Director of Loss Prevention
7. Yum! Brands, Inc. - Steven Antoine, Chief Security Officer, Global Assets Protection
8. VF Corp. - Justin Cullinan, Head of Global Security
9. Lululemon Athletica, Inc. - Greg Brumley, Vice President, Asset Protection and Facilities
10. Big Lots!, Inc - Robert LaCommare CFI, VP, Asset Protection & Safety
11. Pappas Restaurants, Inc. - Joe Wojcik, Senior Investigator
12. Ascena Retail Group, Inc. - Eric Pidgeon, VP, Asset Protection
13. Costco Wholesale Corp. - Larry Montague, Director of Security
14. Art Van Furniture, Inc. - Michael F. Case, Senior Director of Loss Prevention
15. Kohl's Corp. - Randy Meadows, Senior Vice President of Loss Prevention
16. The Kroger Co. - Mike Lamb, Vice President of Asset Protection
17. Safeway/Albertsons - Kathleen Smith, Vice President of Asset Protection
18. Things Remembered - James Baumgart, Senior Manager of Loss Prevention
19. AutoZone, Inc. - Patrick Barker, Corporate Security Manager
20. HAC, Inc. - Craig Nelson, Director, Risk Management and Loss Prevention

Listed Alphabetically

Bed Bath & Beyond - Jake Wilson, Corporate Director, Loss Prevention
Papa Johns - Paul R. Johnson, Chief of Global Security
Party City - John Voytilla, Senior Vice President, Facilities, Construction, Procurement, and Loss Prevention
PetSmart - Matt Lincoln, CFI, Vice President, Loss Prevention, Security and Safety
Qurate Retail Group - Richard Casado, Director, Global Security & Business Continuity
Sherwin Williams - Michael Hagenbush, CFI, Director of Enterprise Risk Management and Compliance
Stage Stores - Allan Watters, Senior Vice President; Asset Protection
The TJX Companies, Inc.- David Mendonca, AVP, Director, Asset Protection and Technology
Tiffany & Co. - David F. McGowan, Vice President, Worldwide Security Services  securitymagazine.com

Hong Kong protesters hold flash mob rallies in malls after crashing city’s
Halloween party
Hong Kong protesters planned flash mob demonstrations in shopping malls on Friday after a night of clashes in a central bar district as prominent pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong called for 100,000 people to take to the streets on Saturday.

Black-clad anti-government protesters, wearing now banned face masks, mingled with fancy-dress Halloween revelers in the narrow, sloping streets of Lan Kwai Fong on Thursday, the first time the district had been targeted. theglobeandmail.com

Organized Crime Gangs Hitting Paris
Paris sees violent crime rise by 70% in some areas
& Huge increase in burglaries, Police say they are struggling to cope
Overall violent crime figures rose by 9% across Paris compared to the previous year.

Mr Goujon blamed the rise in robberies on criminal networks originating from eastern Europe and the Balkans, calling for 'resolute action' to disrupt organised criminal networks.

Speaking to Le Figaro, a senior police officer told the newspaper that the police force was stretched to capacity. 'There are too many missions piling up and our numbers finite.

Criminal damage to property has seen a 13% rise across the capital, with an average of 650 incidents reported a day as figures jumped to 180,000 incidents reported in 2019. dailymail.co.uk

Special Series: New York's New Bail Law
Coming Jan. 1, 2020

Another New Law Impacting Retail LP & ORC Big Time
New York's New No-Bail Law & Grand Larceny - In Effect Jan. 1st, 2020
Mandatory Appearance Tickets - Mandatory Release - Mandate Ability to Pay
Yet the relative lack of fanfare over the passage of New York’s new bail law belies its historic and transformative potential to end mass incarceration at the local level. If implemented effectively, a conservative estimate of the legislation’s impact suggests that New York can expect at least a 40 percent reduction overall in the state’s pretrial jail population.

That bests the 30.4 percent reduction achieved by bail reform in New Jersey, and the anticipated impact of Senate Bill 10 in California— which is currently on hold pending a challenge by the bail bond industry—if it goes into effect in 2020.

The governor and the legislature entered the 2019 legislative session under heightened scrutiny from advocates and progressive reformers to truly reform New York’s criminal justice system.

In August 2018, California passed and Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Senate Bill 10, making it the first state in the country to fully eliminate money bail. Suddenly, it was no longer radical to propose taking money out of the pretrial equation entirely. Second, the same organizing and advocacy that flipped the New York Senate from red to blue had changed the narrative on criminal justice reform.

49 states, all except New York, have changed their bail laws to allow judges to consider both risk of failure to appear and public safety in pretrial decisions.

The final bill that passed eliminated money bail and mandated release for 90 percent of all arrests statewide.

On misdemeanors, judges must either release the person on their own recognizance or set nonmonetary conditions, including court-ordered pretrial supervision.

On all nonviolent felonies, if release on recognizance isn’t granted, judges may impose nonmonetary pretrial conditions, including electronic monitoring.

Click here to read highlights of the law

NYPD Counterterror Chief John Miller Slams New York’s Bail Reform Plan
The NYPD‘s Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counter-terrorism says New York is bound for trouble if the new bail reform plan goes into effect next year. In 2020, new criminal justice reform will eliminate cash bail in New York. It calls for people arrested on low-level misdemeanors or nonviolent felonies to be released without bail, until trial.

“Before they enacted this law, 89%, 89% of people were being released at arraignment without having to pay bail anyway,” Miller said. “Now that’s going to go to probably 99%, which is going to be a problem because criminals are going to know at the time they’re arrested ‘I’m not really risking going to jail, I’m not really risking anything except going through the system and coming out at the other end.'”

“You’re talking about people who can sell pounds of cocaine and walk out with no bail. Someone burglarizes your house and walks out with no bail,” Monahan said. “We’re going to be facing some major issues come Jan. 1 if this doesn’t get changed.”

According to a study by the Data Collaborative for Justice, had the 2020 bail reforms been in place last year, about 20,000 more defendants would have been released without bail compared to the number actually released.

The NYPD and the police union both say the no bail law will make it much more difficult to deter crime.

New Jersey eliminated cash bail in 2017. There, 26.9% of defendants released without bail before trial were charged with a new crime, just slightly more than the 24.2% in 2014. cbslocal.com

Will Prosecutors Attempt to Neuter New York's Bail Reforms?

DAs trained how to keep people in jail despite new bail law

Click here to read our entire special series on the new law

Sustainability Becoming Part of Retail America's Core Values
Publix Takes Lead on Seafood Sustainability
Signs touting “responsibly sourced” and “sustainably sourced” began showing up in Publix Super Markets seafood departments last month. And soon, Publix store-brand seafood packaging will sport a new look for the first time in 15 years. The operator of nearly 1,300 stores wants seafood shoppers to know that its sourcing claims are backed by rigorous quality assurance standards created by third-party organizations so shoppers feel good when buying seafood at Publix, whether fresh or frozen, wild-caught or farm-raised.

Shoppers have trusted Publix for decades, but with the company being more vocal about sustainability attributes of its seafood in marketing, store signing and product packaging, a “trust but verify” approach is being taken. Seafood suppliers to Publix that comply with various requirements of standards-setting organizations will now be subject to new reporting requirements and documentation.

Publix's latest sustainability efforts are another way to earn trust, and Pizzuti and Mowitt recognized that nothing happens at retail if suppliers aren’t on board with the program.

The goal, broadly, was to share the retailer’s commitment to sustainability, provide an update on key sourcing and regulatory challenges, and then get into nitty-gritty details about use of a reporting portal, timelines around the packaging conversion, and key process changes to simplify store-level execution for employees tasked with making sure that sustainably and responsibly sourced products are properly signed. progressivegrocer.com

Physical security governance guidelines
At the core of the Physical Security Governance conversation is the ability or inability of organizations to collaborate and communicate between silos such as Operations, Human Resources, Finance, etc. Often, the best practices, policies and procedures are thwarted by ineffective collaboration and management within the enterprise. I have found that although the desire is clearly explicit, the action is far from perfect.

Building physical security governance through proper policies and procedures cannot function under a dysfunctional corporate environment. Therefore, part of best practices is to bring together leaders from the C suite and management to ensure that there is a willingness to build a security program that connects IT, OT, and physical security as well as every aspect of the corporate tapestry. This will pave the way to best use of technology and human assets to improve and strengthen a healthy security environment.
Respectively, the use of the information received by technology and human assets will corroborate and identify strengths and weaknesses, creating metrics that build proper policies, procedures and governance.

Finally, this shift for an organization will clearly define and maintain a culture of awareness and transparency, which will build a sense of trust and safety that all employees expect. securitysystemsnews.com

The Toys R Us Story
Private Equity Firms Have Caused Painful Job Losses And More Are Coming
In fact, private equity firms cause significant unemployment. As I wrote a few weeks ago, economists at Harvard University and the University of Chicago found that when private equity take over companies, employment in the private-equity backed companies decreases by over 4% in the first two years following the buyout. The research piece “The Economic Effects of Private Equity” also described that when private equity firms buy out large publicly traded companies with numerous employees, job losses are far worse, about a 13% decrease in jobs in the first two years.

All too often when private equity professionals tout their cost cutting strategies, they do not mention that cost cutting means firing people and taking away their livelihoods.

Ann Marie Reinhart-Smith, a North Carolina resident who is a former employee of Toys “R” Us. "Buying up a company with borrowed money is not supporting jobs or our economy. I saw first-hand the cuts private equity made to Toys “R” Us after the 2005 buyout. They took away our full-time positions, hours and benefits and made us take on more work.”

The Stop Wall Street Looting Act, a bill co-sponsored by House and Senate Democrats, because it “is designed to prevent those practices by private equity firms and which will benefit workers in PE-owned firms.”

This year 14 private equity backed rated companies defaulted. The highest number are in the retail sector. forbes.com

Penney's Coming Out Party - Right Before the Holidays
Penney's Opens 'Store of its Wishes' - 'Lab' in Hurst
It’s got a barber shop, yoga studio, seating throughout, Pearl Cup coffee on both levels and a Dallas Cowboys shop built for social-media moments.

Soltau ended her first year leading the company by officially unveiling a department store experience that she said came straight from Penney customer research.

The two-level classic mall anchor built in 1971 has been transformed into a clean, open, uncluttered department store with experiences that retail experts say are needed to get people back into the store.

Shopalongs, individual and focus group interviews and data were used to come up with a store that’s easier to shop, Soltau said. With 13% less inventory, that space has been given back to the shopper in the form of 11 lounges to “hang out and chill so they can continue shopping.”

The North East Mall store isn’t a prototype or flagship store, she said. “It is the fullest articulation of our brand strategy and we’re going to use as a lab.”

“There’s not one simple thing to do or one shiny experience,” she said. “But we’re doing things as fast as we can. Speed is what we’re after.” dallasnews.com

WSJ: J.C. Penney Plots a Comeback: Less Clutter, More Yoga Classes
CEO tests new services while looking to make Penney stores easier to shop
A glimpse at a future for J.C. Penney Co. JCP +1.00% can be found in Hurst, Texas, where a remodeled store has a fitness studio, a videogame lounge and style classes.

Chief Executive Jill Soltau, who took the reins just over a year ago, also is focused on getting back to basics. She is making stores easier to shop by removing piles of excess goods and getting out of less profitable categories such as appliances. And in about 10% of its stores, she is grouping products by lifestyle.

Fitting rooms are equipped with interactive mirrors, a concierge, stylists, branded hair salon, barber shop.

The struggling retailer plans to test ideas at this store before rolling them out to other locations. “What we get out of this store will ultimately fuel a chain refresh,” she said.

She doesn’t have the luxury of time.

Ms. Soltau said she has no immediate plans for major closings, adding that the vast majority of stores are profitable. Instead, she wants to fix the mistakes of past management that pushed Penney off course.

The Hurst store, about 45 minutes from Penney’s headquarters in Plano, offers a blueprint of Ms. Soltau’s vision for the company. wsj.com

1st State to Outlaw Possessing a Skimmer
Oklahoma: Credit Card Skimmer law goes into effect today
On Friday, 324 new laws will go into effect in Oklahoma. One makes possessing a credit card skimmer – commonly used in credit card fraud – a criminal offense. Last spring, Representative Strom said HB 2380 is the first of its kind. Oklahoma became the first state to outlaw the appliance of credit card skimmers alongside the fraud associated with them. Rep. Strom said there is no purpose for these things to exist in the wild other than to create modern day bank robbers. bartlesvilleradio.com

Daniel Schmelzer Releases New Book for Security Sales Professionals
Security industry veteran Daniel Schmelzer has brought to market a new book: Securing Trust: A Guide for Security Technology Sales Professionals Written from the Customer’s Perspective. This guide was written to equip today’s security integrator with the tools and knowledge they need to close more sales and enhance their customer relationships. sdmmag.com

Chick-fil-A accidentally emailed customers about National Sandwich Day before realizing it was on a Sunday

FedEx to Hire 100,000

Forever 21 closing all Riley Rose stores

Time to Take Stock of Data Security Online & At Physical POS
Bed Bath & Beyond data breach serves up valuable reminders for retailers, consumers
A data breach impacting Bed Bath & Beyond online customer accounts offers up lessons and reminders for retailers and consumers, according to cybersecurity experts, just in time for the busiest retail shopping season of the year.

The retailer announced Tuesday in an SEC filing that email and password data were accessed by a third-party with less than 1% of customer accounts compromised. No payment cards were impacted, according to the retailer.

In the SEC filing, the retailer stated it has sent notifications to certain customers as required by law, has hired a security forensics team and is implementing remedial measures.

While the retailer investigates, security experts say it's prime time for all retailers to take stock of data security online and at the physical POS, as well as assess measures in place and, most importantly, shore up employee education and knowledge about potential security issues.

While there is limited public knowledge regarding the breach it may well be the result of an employee re-using company credentials that were compromised, according to Javvad Malik, a security awareness advocate at KnowBe4.

"It should serve as a reminder to all companies that employee training is important, so that they do not put the company at risk through actions outside of work," he told Retail Customer Experience in an email. retailcustomerexperience.com

Quantifying Security Results to Justify Costs
The CISO job isn't to protect the entire business from all threats for any budget. It's to spell out what level of protection executives can expect for a given budget.

Most modern security programs are centered around "maturity" toward compliance to a security framework, or a subjective "expert" opinion. Neither of these approaches can justify security spend or deliver a meaningful protection-from-impact result. To justify security budget, CISOs need to be able to answer questions, such as:

• Who can and cannot breach a crown jewel?

• Is this level of protection justifiable?

• What cost did we achieve this for, and is that cost reasonable?

To answer these questions, CISOs need quantifiable data and terms that influence costs and results because executives are results driven. They care much less about what security is doing, and much more about what they get in return for it. They want to know how differences in security spending quantifiably change the business's exposure to big impacts. For that reason, security professionals need to change the narrative from "security is a journey, not a destination" to "security is a chosen destination, with a justified journey to get and remain there." darkreading.com

Flying Below Radar & Evading Police
Combating Cybercrime: Key Challenges for 2020s and Beyond
Global Cyber Alliance's Andy Bates Sees Escalating Attempts to Evade Police
One major challenge with combating cybercrime in the 2020s and beyond appears destined to be attackers launching a greater number of less-obvious attacks.

"We think that one of the trends going forward into the future is that a larger number of smaller-value crimes go below the radar ... and therefore avoid detection by law enforcement," says Andy Bates, executive director of the Global Cyber Alliance. *Special editorial note: Like the $1 charge on bank statements.

In a video interview at Information Security Media Group's recent Cybersecurity Summit in London, Bates discusses:

• The evolution of online crime and nation-state attacks;
• Strategies for addressing top business challenges;
• Free and tools to help organizations improve their cybersecurity posture.

Bates serves as the executive director for the United Kingdom, Europe, Middle East and Africa for the Global Cyber Alliance. He has more than 25 years of experience. Previously, he served as CTO at Verizon EMEA and served in various roles at Racal Electronics, Cable & Wireless Worldwide PLC and Level3. careersinfosecurity.com

McAfee: Malicious Voicemails Target Office365 Users
Scammers Include Fake Audio in Attempt to Steal Credentials
Cybercriminals are targeting users of Microsoft's Office365 subscription services with phishing campaigns that uses fake voicemail messages in an attempt to steal victims' credentials and other information, according to researchers at the security firm McAfee.

In a report released Thursday, the researchers say they discovered three phishing kits being used in the campaign, which was first detected in early August. What stood out was the use of audio in email attachments claiming to be voicemail as a way to lure users into exposing their information, says Oliver Devane, a senior security researcher at McAfee.

"This is unusual and this is what caught our attention," Devane tells Information Security Media Group. "We have not observed phishing emails using audio in the past. We believe that this is the work of three different groups using the same tactic. Most likely they are copying each other as they found the tactic to be useful."

In the campaign that McAfee detected, the victim initially receives a phishing email saying they missed a voice call and are instructed to log into their account to get the message, according to the report.

Contained within the phishing email is an attached HTML file. When the user loads the file, they are redirected to the phishing website, McAfee finds. govinfosecurity.com

Editor's Note: The Daily's office has received a number of these phising emails by the way.

The Cybersecurity Awareness Gap Doesn't Look Like You'd Expect
Don't assume your younger employees are the most tuned in to cybersecurity. A new study finds that many workers under 30 don't fully appreciate the risks and may see security practices as impediments to productivity.

In "Meeting the Expectations of a New Generation" [registration], which summarizes NTT research, the firm reports that employees under age 30 have "profoundly different attitudes towards cybersecurity," emphasizing flexibility and productivity. Older employees have a stronger handle on cybersecurity practices-particularly in Norway and Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. (Overall, the most cyber-savvy nation is France, where a government program raised awareness of cybersecurity issues among students who are now in the workforce.)

So why are older employees often better at cybersecurity? Simply put, they've been around the block more often. associations.com

Senior Job
BlackRock: Information Security Risk Manager Vice President posted in Wilmington, DE
* Special Note: This finance firm made a purchase recently of around 600 last mile delivery hubs in urban areas across the U.S. and is now in the top 2 of owning last mile delivery hubs. We could potentially see a partnership with Amazon.

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San Diego County, CA: Federal Investigation: Key Fobs Stolen in Mexico, Resold in US
A federal investigation has found hundreds of stolen car fobs are being smuggled across the border where smugglers are reselling them across Imperial and San Diego County in Southern California. The stolen key fobs come from auto plants like Ford, Dodge, and Mazda located across the border where the smugglers then sneaked them across the Calexico port of entry. For the past year-and-a-half federal investigators have been trying to catch Wilberth Jose Gomez and Jennifer Verdin as they are suspected of selling key fobs online or to selected retailers. According to federal documents, Gomez admitted to importing the key fobs and that some he purchased were stolen from auto manufacturing plants in Mexico. Over the investigation, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers confiscated over 100 Ford fobs, 50 Dodge fobs, and 88 fobs from Mazda, Nissan, and Toyota. The concern is if that if these key fobs get into the wrong hands, they can access your car. "It appears that thieves can steal the code from a certain transmitter and then re-transmit," said Baron Baker, President of Sound Check Systems. "Fobs are programmed to the specific vehicle, and it shouldn't work on any vehicle, but sometimes it can." In case you lose your keys, Baker says, don't just buy a replacement anywhere and make sure you notify the dealership. nbcmiami.com

Westmoreland County, PA: Man using stolen identity from dark web caught at Greensburg Best Buy
An alert employee at the Best Buy in Greensburg helped police catch a wanted man accused of identity theft, police said Thursday. Vaughn Lawhorn, 46, was arrested after police said he tried to use a stolen identity on two separate occasions to buy electronics from the store. Police said Lawhorn admitted to getting the victim's information off of the dark web. "For less than $100, that information can come on a Pennsylvania driver's license," Penn Township Police Chief John Otto said. Police said Lawhorn had that license with the victim's information and Lawhorn's picture and they said the fake was difficult to spot. Otto said the victim attempted to use that license as a way to access the victim's Best Buy credit card. A manager at the store noticed some inconsistencies in Lawhorn's information and canceled the purchase. "The victim in this case was very smart with his information. He's not foolish, and he's not somebody that puts his information out there all the time," Otto said. "It's very easy for anybody to collect most people's identities, so you have to come up with a way to protect yours as best as you can." Lawhorn was arraigned Wednesday evening and denied bail. Police said he is wanted on similar charges in multiple states, including California and Maryland. wtae.com

Cole County, Grand jury indicts four men in Best Buy burglary
A Cole County Grand Jury indicted four men for allegedly taking more than $60,000 worth of merchandise from a Best Buy. It happened in August at the Jefferson City store. The suspects in the case are Michael Coleman, Jeremy Phillips, Keeland Johnson, and Micah Lazaro. The new charges include second-degree burglary, felony stealing, felony resisting arrest and having burglary tools. The four men are from Houston, Texas. A law enforcement source previously told ABC 17 News that the men are suspected of having ties with a gang that has stolen from Best Buys across the Midwest. Court hearings are scheduled for next month. abc17news.com

Memphis, TN: Employee accused of stealing more than $11,000 from Dollar General
A woman is accused of stealing more than $10,000 worth of items from the Dollar General store where she worked. Daizha Morris is charged with felony theft of property. Between June and October of this year, investigators say she stole items from the Dollar General on Highway 64. The store's loss prevention manager filed an embezzlement report that stated Morris would ring up one item and then take multiple bags of merchandise without paying for them. Morris admitted to stealing merchandise from Dollar Tree and signed a written statement. The total loss for the store was $11,247. fox13memphis.com

Owasso, OK: Police arrest 4 following $1,000 Kohl’s theft, seize meth, other paraphernalia

Scottsdale, AZ: Police seek pair of suspects in armed robbery at Home Depot