ADT Commercial Purchases Critical Systems of Georgia
ADT Commercial is expanding its presence in Atlanta with the purchase of Critical Systems.

Headquartered in Marietta, Ga. and established in 2002, Critical Systems specializes in enterprise-class fire alarm, fire suppression, life safety and integrated building security solutions for high-rise properties, healthcare campuses and mission-critical data, manufacturing and distribution facilities in Atlanta and its suburbs.
 
Read more in today's Vendor Spotlight column below.

NPC International, Inc. Joins the Agilence Customer Community
Agilence, Inc., the leading provider of data analytics & reporting solutions to the retail and restaurant industries, today announced that NPC International, Inc. has selected the 20/20 Data Analytics Platform as their new data analytics reporting tool. NPC International is the fifth-largest restaurant unit operator in the US and will be using Agilence's technology within its 393 Wendy's locations.

“After reviewing other data analytics solutions, it became clear that Agilence’s 20/20 Data Analytics Platform was the one for us,” said Salvatore Miele, Director of Loss Prevention. “Agilence will give our team insights into day-to-day operations allowing us to identify real opportunities for success so we can improve our top-line growth while minimizing losses.” newswire.com
 

FBI Releases 'Lone Offender Terrorism Report'

- FBI's 'lone wolf' report says domestic terrorists are rarely isolated
- Report examined 52 lone offender terrorist attacks from 1972 to 2015
- 33 acts of terrorism killed a total of 258 people and injured 982

The FBI said Wednesday that a study of terror attacks in the United States over the past three decades revealed that lone offenders were seldom completely isolated and alone, further evidence that following the government's "see something, say something" advice can help prevent attacks.

While predicting lone offender terrorism is not possible, “it may be preventable with increased bystander education and awareness in recognizing concerning behavior and reporting it to authorities as soon as possible," the FBI said in releasing a report compiled by the Behavioral Threat Assessment Center of the bureau's Behavioral Analysis Unit — better known as the FBI’s profilers.

Most offenders had “family, peers, or online contacts who were in a position to notice troubling behavior," the report said. "More than half of those who observed concerning behaviors made some effort to intervene or voice their concerns."

The report examined 52 lone offender terrorist attacks in the U.S. from 1972 to 2015. Thirty-three of their acts of terrorism killed a total of 258 people and injured 982. But it found nothing to suggest a profile of a typical attacker, other than the fact that all were men.

Most were U.S. citizens, born here, single and had some college education. But more than half were not working and not in school when they carried out their attacks. nbcnews.com fbi.gov


El Paso, TX: Walmart hires off-duty officers before reopening today
Walmart has quietly hired off-duty officers at its stores in El Paso, Texas, where a gunman police say targeted Mexicans opened fire in a store in August and killed 22 people. Walmart plans Thursday to reopen the store where the attack happened and amid ongoing lawsuits over safety. Walmart didn’t have a guard in the store the day of the mass shooting.

“There was a time that Walmart hired off-duty officers and for some time prior (to) August 3rd that ceased,” said El Paso police spokesman Enrique Carrillo, in an email. He declined to provide more details.

When El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen first revealed the phasing out of officers in a city council meeting, council members discussed possibly mandating that off-duty officers be hired at large stores. The idea hadn’t been implemented. Instead, Walmart quietly started hiring off-duty officers at their stores across the city, from Supercenters to “neighborhood markets,” the retail giant’s smaller grocery stores.

Walmart spokeswoman Delia Garcia, said in a statement that shoppers may notice additional security at the Walmart that is reopening “to help facilitate traffic flow and support other store needs.”

Some victims of the attack are now suing Walmart over the lack of security, arguing that its method for evaluating security boils down to an inadequate algorithm.

It plans to post signage with its new policy discouraging customers from openly carrying guns. But it’s not banning them. pbs.org

Walmart manager ready to lead reopening of store where El Paso mass shooting occurred

El Pasoans have mixed feelings about the reopening of the Cielo Vista Walmart

El Paso Walmart offers glimpse at memorial for mass shooting victims

 

UK: Kingston, England: Primark security guard convicted of raping and sexually assaulting teenage shoplifters
Zia Uddin, targeted his 15-year-old victims while he was working at the Kingston branch of Primark. Kingston Crown Court heard how he told four girls he caught shoplifting from the store that they would get criminal records, their parents would be informed and they would be detained for some time unless they carried out the sexual acts. The 27-year-old, who was employed by Brooknight Security, was caught out in after a complaint was made about him and police were called in. He also failed to fill out the correct incident report paperwork in shoplifting situations and asked colleagues to delete CCTV footage. Following a trial, Uddin was found guilty on Friday, November 8 of one count of rape, three counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and one count of engaging in sexual activity in the presence of a child. Uddin will be sentenced at Kingston Crown Court on Tuesday, November 19. newhamrecorder.co.uk

Study: Injured retail workers are out an average 24 days
When a retail worker is injured on the job, the resulting leave lasts for an average of 24 days, according to an analysis of 20,000 workers compensation claims by AmTrust Financial Services, Inc.

The report identified the most expensive injuries for retail workers: falls or slips from ladders or scaffolding, with an average payout of $21,000; strains or injury by repetitive motion, with an average payout of $14,000; and vehicular collisions, with an average payout of $13,900. The report also found that the most hazardous retail classes to be food, hardware, drivers and automobile parts and accessories, and hair styling establishments.

"Analyzing three-years of data gave us new insights into why people in retail miss work, what kind of injuries are the worst or most expensive for employers, and how long it takes for an employee to return to work," Matt Zender, AmTrust's senior vice president, Workers' Compensation Strategy, said in a media release. "It reinforced our belief that training - in both operations and safety - is essential in the retail sector, especially for younger workers where we tend to see more workers' compensation claims." retaildive.com

The RealReal CEO says: ‘We keep changing’ to fend off fakes
Mad Money's Jim Cramer Takes CEO to Task
The RealReal is overhauling its product authentication process and the operation will look vastly different come 2020, the online luxury consignment shop’s CEO Julie Wainwright said.

“What we did even in August of this year doesn’t look like what we do now. We have to keep iterating and we get smarter all the time,” she said in a “Mad Money” interview.

Calls the former employees who CNBC interviewed - "disgruntled employees so let's focus on what we're doing today". Hey the CEO was prepped and ready to go. But Mad Money's Jim Cramer did take her to task in the interview. cnbc.com

Shoptalk makes a statement with a conference featuring only women speakers
In an industry in which male executives regularly refer to their customers using strictly feminine pronouns, it has always been striking how relatively few women have risen to positions of power within retail. Sure, there are high-profile examples of female CEOs, including at Best Buy, J.C. Penney, Kohl’s, Rite Aid, Stitch Fix and Ulta Beauty, but the industry, by-and-large, continues to be male-dominated.

Those who have attended industry trade conferences over the years have encountered speaker lineups skewed heavily toward men. To be sure, strides have been made, with more women speakers sharing their expertise on a wide variety of topics. Both the National Retail Federation’s Big Show and Shoptalk have featured more female speakers in recent years. The shows have also included a “Girls’ Lounge” where women discussed a wide variety of topics centered around achieving success in an industry that has often failed to recognize and reward talented female contributors.

With all of the above as a backdrop, comes news from Shoptalk that its event next March in Las Vegas will feature only women speakers. retailwire.com

Study: Some Retail Execs Underestimate Impact Of Diversity, Inclusion
A new report by First Insight Inc. finds that 92 percent of senior retail executives surveyed felt that consumers would continue to buy from their company even if they created and offered a controversial and offensive product, if they pulled it from the shelves quickly and issued a public apology. In comparison, only 27 percent of consumers responded that they wouldn’t mind and would continue shopping at that retailer. Further, 19 percent of consumers said they would stop shopping at that retailer or brand forever vs. the 5 percent predicted by senior retail leaders.

The study points to a significant perception gap between senior retail executives and consumers on the impact of diversity and inclusion themes on shopping behavior. theshelbyreport.com

Attorney General Announces Launch of Project Guardian
A Nationwide Strategic Plan to Reduce Gun Violence
Project Guardian draws on the Department’s earlier achievements, such as the “Triggerlock” program, and it serves as a complementary effort to the success of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN). In addition, the initiative emphasizes the importance of using all modern technologies available to law enforcement to promote gun crime intelligence. justice.gov

Walmart’s Strategy When Wading Into Culture Wars: Offend Few
Walmart is getting out of the vaping business, but still sells cigarettes. It is working to reduce plastic packaging for the products on its shelves, but continues to use plastic grocery bags in its checkout lines. After a gunman killed 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso this summer, the retailer said it would no longer offer certain types of ammunition, but stopped short of barring customers from carrying their guns into stores.

When navigating the nation’s culture wars, Walmart follows a strategy it has honed for years: Alienate as few customers as possible, and do no harm to its core business. In many cases, it appears to be working. Walmart’s stance on guns, for example, drew a lot of attention but had “no discernible impact” on overall sales, according to a top executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters. nytimes.com

12 Phrases To Help Leaders Resolve Conflict
Conflicts are an inevitable part of any workplace and a constant source of stress for many leaders. Conflict resolution is an important skill for any leader to master. Like many other challenges, conflicts can actually present opportunities for positive change. Effective conflict resolution can build deeper relationships and foster more effective communication. One of the issues many leaders face in conflict resolution is simply knowing what to say. Here are some effective phrases to use in times of conflict:

● I sense that you’re feeling emotional about this topic. Is that right?
● Let’s take a breather before we think this through.
● Thank you for your candor - I appreciate your feedback.
● I recognize your efforts and hard work.
● Let’s work on this problem and fix it together.
● Tell me more - I want to understand.
● Let’s see what we can do to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
● What can we do to change the situation?
● Yes, you’re completely right.
● I wasn’t aware of this - tell me more.
● I am with you on that.
● How can I support you?

"Worst Year on Record" For Breaches & Records
5,183 Breaches - 7.9 Billion Records Exposed in 2019 Already
Today, we released our Q3 2019 Data Breach QuickView Report and continuing off Q1 and Mid-Year expectations, breach activity in 2019 is on track to being “the worst year on record".

Within the first nine months of 2019 there have been 5,183 breaches reported with 7.9 billion records exposed, and we are on track to reach 8.5 billion. Compared to the mid-year of 2018, the total number of breaches was up 33.3% and the total number of records exposed more than doubled, up 112%.

Just six breaches accounted for 3.1 billion records exposed between July 1st and September 30th.

The Q3 2019 Data Breach QuickView Report covers the data breaches reported between January 1st and September 30th, 2019. Key findings state that by NAICS economic sector, medical services, retailers and public entities experienced the most breaches, but when all business related sectors are combined, general business remains the most breached organization type. Looking further into data breach landscape, hacking remains the top breach type for number of incidents while Web has exposed the most records this year. riskbasedsecurity.com

Survey Finds Nearly 3 in 4 Retailers Have Been Attacked by Cybercriminals
Biggest Challenges: Lack of Personnel - Budget - Knowledge

The online threats facing retailers are becoming more complex and threatening, new research from the Ponemon Institute finds. The 2019 Global State of Cybersecurity in Small and Medium-Sized Businesses measured responses from over 2,000 IT and IT security professionals around the world, 239 of which were from the retail industry. Some top-line findings include:

● 61% of retailers experienced a cyberattack within the past year, with 72% being attacked in their organization's lifetime.

● 50% of retailers reported having no response plan for a data breach, 11% higher than the all-industry average.

● The average attack involving the loss of customer or employee data results in 7,772 individual records lost or stolen, with an average cost of $1.9 million from the disruption of normal operations.

When asked what factors are contributing to these attacks, budget was a top concern for retailers. Only one in three believes they have adequate budget to achieve strong IT security, while over half do not. However, 93% of retailers spend less than 20% of their overall IT budget on security, with an average spend of 11.5%. Insufficient personnel (91%), insufficient budget (51%) and no understanding of how to protect themselves from cyberattacks (40%) were the most commonly cited challenges preventing fully effective security posture. prnewswire.com

3 Reasons You Should Be Offering Cloud-Based Access Control
Johnson Controls Martin Renkis, GM Cloud Solutions
Cloud-based access control can make life easier for both the security integrator and the end user, as well as open up new markets and opportunities to integrators.

To understand how cloud-based access control can help boost your business, you first have to define what it is — and what it isn’t. While cloud-based “as-a-service” business models are beginning to proliferate across the security industry, when it comes to access control, the terms “hosted” and “managed” seem to be more common; and while these can be cloud-based, they are not necessarily the same thing as cloud-based Access Control as a Service.

“Everybody is used to the term “VSaaS” [for video as a service], but you don’t see ACaaS as much,” says Martin Renkis, general manager, cloud solutions, global security products, Johnson Controls, Milwaukee. “There is a big difference between ACaaS and hosted or managed access … Hosted or managed access control could be the same as taking your current system you have in your building that is residing on a server, unplugging it, walking it down the street to a data center and plugging it in … All you are doing is moving the hardware off-site.”

“What I call a cloud solution is unlimited in scale and I can instantly add or delete services on-demand. That is the number one differentiator between a true cloud-play and a hosted/managed play. True cloud is dynamically scalable.”

1 It Saves the Integrator Time & Money
2 It Makes Customers Happier
3 It Creates RMR & Opens New Business Opportunities

Renkis takes it even further. “I would posit that cloud-based solutions are significantly more secure than on-premise solutions. The amount of investment that Johnson Controls makes in cyber security — along with our partners like Microsoft, Google and Amazon — is significantly more than any single company is going to be doing on its own.

Many experts agree that cloud technology is at least as secure, if not more secure than the typical on-premises solution.

While both types need to be cyber-secured equally, there is one advantage to cloud architecture, Stamatelos says. “With access control in the cloud, any time we have an upgrade we simply push it to the customer so they are always up-to-date.”

Every platform will say they are secure, but what backs that claim? Look for organizations with experience and resources that invest significantly in cyber security annually. Consider asking how much they spend on cyber security and data privacy every year, as well as if they have a designated cyber team and how large that team is. You and your customer’s business can be dramatically affected by a cyber attack or a data privacy leak. It’s important to learn more and challenge your cloud partner to support you.

- Contributed by Martin Renkis, general manager, Cloud Solutions, Global Security Products, Johnson Controls sdmmag.com

This unusual new ransomware is going after servers
An unconventional form of ransomware is being deployed in targeted attacks against enterprise servers – and it appears to have links to some of the most notorious cyber-criminal groups around.

The previously undetected server-encrypting malware has been detailed in research by cybersecurity analysts at Intezer and IBM X-Force, who've named it PureLocker because it's written in the PureBasic programming language.

It's unusual for ransomware to be written in PureBasic, but it provides benefits to attackers because sometimes security vendors struggle to generate reliable detection signatures for malicious software written in this language. PureBasic is also transferable between Windows, Linux, and OS-X, meaning attackers can more easily target different platforms. zdnet.com

Microsoft Will Apply California's Privacy Law Nationwide
Company's Move Could Influence Other Technology Companies

New Ransomware-as-a-Service Offered at Deep Discount: Report

Exchanged Over 10,000 Counterfeits
For the Real Thing at Apple Stores & Shipped Them Back to China
'Fourteen Indicted in $6 Million Counterfeit iPhones Scheme; Biggest Fraud of its Kind in Southern District'
During a coordinated takedown that began early this morning, investigators executed 11 search warrants - including at two businesses plus several homes and vehicles located in Mira Mesa and Mission Hills - and seized an estimated $250,000 in cash plus 90 iPhones which are being evaluated to determine authenticity. As of today at noon, 11 of 14 defendants are in federal custody. Three are fugitives, including Xiamon Zhong, who is believed to be in China; Charley Hsu of San Diego; and Hyo Weon Yang of San Francisco.

According to the indictment, the organization - led by three brothers - imported more than 10,000 counterfeit iPhones and iPads from China, exchanged them for the real thing at Apple stores throughout the United States and Canada, and then shipped the authentic devices back to China and other foreign countries to sell at a premium.

Apple conservatively estimates that the loss associated with the counterfeit items that were fraudulently exchanged at Apple Stores for genuine Apple productss exceeds $6.1 million.

The Liao brothers – alleged ringleaders Zhiwei, Zhimin and Zhiting – were arrested by FBI agents this morning along with their wives. The brothers are naturalized U.S. citizens born in China. Other defendants include mostly U.S. citizens, mostly naturalized, from China, Vietnam and Russia. justice.gov

San Diego, CA: Former Navy Warehouse Manager Pleads Guilty to Stealing Over $2.5 Million in Goods from the U.S. Navy & Reselling Online
Herbert Gutierrez, former warehouse manager at the U.S. Navy Military Sealift Command Warehouse in San Diego, pleaded guilty today to stealing more than $2.5 million worth of goods from the Navy warehouse where he worked at the time. According to his plea agreement, Gutierrez stole the items over a nine-month period, from July 2018 to April 2019. He advertised items from the warehouse for sale online, including through such websites as eBay, and then allowed private individuals into the Military Sealift Command (MSC) warehouse yard during work hours and after hours to take the government property, load it onto trucks, and haul it away. For example, in February 2019, Gutierrez allowed a utility truck and a tractor-trailer to enter the MSC warehouse after hours – and when they left, the vehicle contained over $1 million in stolen copper nickel tubing. Gutierrez could face up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. nbcsandiego.com

Metro Denver Man Pleads Guilty To Gun Store Thefts And Carjacking
Defendant part of violent “smash and grab” organization
Jonathan Estrada, a/k/a Hight, age 20, of Denver pled guilty yesterday to thefts of firearms from federal firearms licensees and carjacking. Estrada was part of a violent “smash and grab” organization that stole vehicles and burglarized federal firearms licensees (FFLs).

September 19, 2017, Estrada and another individual burglarized the Reloader’s Corner, an FFL in Arvada, Colorado. Seventeen firearms were stolen. On January 18, 2018, Estrada and five others burglarized Murdoch’s Ranch and Home Supply, an FFL in Littleton. They stole thirteen AR-15 style firearms. justice.gov

Fargo, ND: 'Shoplifting boosters' take $7k of clothes from West Acres, Target

St Charles County, MO: Man arrested for $2,400 Target store theft/ assault was already on probation for other crimes

Concord, NC: Woman stole more than $1,800 of merchandise from Victoria Secret in Concord Mills Mall

Olympia, WA: 3 men arrested for stealing $800 in merchandise from JCPenney at Capital Mall