Explosion of Retail Looting & Theft Has Stores on Edge

America's Shoplifting Epidemic On Full Display This Past Weekend
Organized shoplifting exploits 'woke' undermining of law enforcement

Retail stores already under siege from pandemic restrictions and supply chain hiccups are increasingly facing another threat to their bottom lines: organized theft.

The problem was on vivid display over the weekend when dozens of looters stormed into a Nordstrom department store outside San Francisco wearing masks and wielding crowbars. As many as 80 suspects snatched armloads of products and sped away in more than 20 waiting cars on Saturday. Police have so far arrested just three suspects in connection with the raid.

Thieves smashed the windows and looted the high-end goods of a San Francisco Louis Vuitton store over the weekend as well, creating chaos in a popular area of the city.

The scenes are increasingly familiar in San Francisco and beyond, with shoplifters taking advantage of more lenient prosecutors, overstretched police forces, and local laws to clear shelves of goods they then attempt to sell, often online.

Some stores have responded to the spike in professional shoplifting by simply shutting their doors. In San Francisco, where the problem has received outsize attention, Walgreens announced last month that it would close five locations as a direct result of organized retail crime.

But aggressive shoplifting is not limited to San Francisco, where California state law classifies theft of goods valued under $950 as a misdemeanor that may not warrant the attention of law enforcement.

The problem has spread to stores across the country, draining money from business owners whose margins are often already thin.

Retail experts have pointed to shifts in consumer behavior as one of the factors driving the shoplifting epidemic. With more people than ever shopping for more of their purchases online, thieves have an easier time offloading the everyday goods they swipe from shelves. washingtonexaminer.com

A Growing Nationwide Problem: Retail Looting & Theft
Mob thefts rock retail. What can stores do?
U.S. retailers have experienced a rash of highly orchestrated and alarming smash-and-grab thefts recently, notably in California’s Bay Area and Chicago.

Around 80 looters flooded a Nordstrom location in Walnut Creek, CA, on Saturday, stealing armfuls of merchandise and attacking employees with a flurry of punches, kicks and pepper spray, according to NBC News. The raid took only one minute. Looters parked their cars to block the street before carrying out the smash-and-grab.

The previous day an even more widespread episode of mob looting and vandalism struck San Francisco’s Union Square neighborhood, according to ABC News. Louis Vuitton, Burberry and Bloomingdale’s numbered among the 10 retailers targeted in that wave of smash-and-grabs.

Malls in Hayward and San Jose were struck on Sunday by mobs of hammer-wielding looters who ransacked a jewelry store and a Lululemon location, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Jim Dudley, a lecturer at San Francisco State University’s department of criminal justice studies, told the Chronicle that the raids did not appear to be politically motivated and confirmed that there did seem to be an uptick in smash-and-grab style theft occurring.

Further east, the Neiman Marcus store in Chicago’s Magnificent Mile luxury shopping district was robbed on Friday by three carloads of people, according to the Chicago Tribune. Another store had its window broken.

Both the Bay Area and Chicago have experienced significant increases in retail crime over the past year.

The Magnificent Mile has seen such a high rate of theft that in October police issued a formal warning, according to CBS Chicago. Some retail tenants have vacated the area, and a stretch of North Michigan Avenue remains vacant.

Some retailers in San Francisco had taken steps to try to reduce the impact of organized retail crime. Walgreens, for instance, announced in October the closure of five San Francisco stores frequently targeted by organized theft rings, according to The New York Times.

In 2020 the National Retail Federation (NRF) ranked these cities among the worst for retail crime along with Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Baltimore, Atlanta, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia. retaildive.com

Another Retailer Sounds the Alarm Over Rising Theft
Best Buy CEO says the trauma from rising retail thefts could force employees to quit

Best Buy CEO said that rising thefts could hurt employee retention at its stores and across the retail industry.

Best Buy CEO Corie Barry said Tuesday that rising theft is hitting the company’s profits and could hurt employee retention at a time when the labor market is tight, especially in the retail industry.

She said the retailer has seen a noticeable jump in organized crime, with people coming to stores to steal consumer electronics — and in some cases, bringing a weapon like a gun or a crowbar. She said the company will prioritize the safety of customers and employees, even if that means criminals are running out of the door with thousands of dollars of merchandise.

“These are traumatic experiences and they are happening more and more across the country,” she said on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.”

Other retailers, including Kroger, CVS Health and Walgreens Boots Alliance, have also spoken about an increase in theft — with Walgreens even saying it is closing certain stores because of it.

To fight organized crime, Best Buy is locking up some of its merchandise, hiring security guards in certain locations and working with retail trade groups to look for solutions, said Barry on an earnings call.

She said San Francisco and other parts of California have been “hot spots” for the crimes, but said there are problematic pockets across the country. In some cases, she said, more than a dozen people rush in a store and run out with goods. In other cases, it’s just a couple of people. cnbc.com

California Takes More Action to Fight Out-of-Control ORC
Governor Newsom Doubles Down on Ending Organized Retail Crime Rings
In response to a recent increase in organized retail theft activities across the state, Governor Gavin Newsom has directed the California Highway Patrol (CHP) to increase their presence near major retail sites and announced a proposed increase in the 2022-2023 state budget to combat retail theft.

“The level of organized retail theft we are seeing is simply unacceptable,” said Governor Newsom. “Businesses and customers should feel safe while doing their holiday shopping. That’s why California is substantially increasing CHP’s presence, especially near retail areas, and will be investing even more to aggressively curb retail crime. As a small business owner myself, I am resolved to holding these criminals accountable and protecting our local businesses.”

Since the weekend’s string of robberies, the administration has coordinated with local mayors, police departments and retailers to address the increase in felony theft. The state has increased the California Highway Patrol presence in highly-trafficked shopping areas. Saturation patrols will continue through the holiday season to assist allied partners in the apprehension of criminals as well as to improve public safety.

Addressing retail crime and safety has been a top priority for the Newsom Administration. In July, Governor Newsom joined law enforcement leaders and Big 13 mayors to reestablish CHP’s Organized Retail Crime Task Force. Since its inception, the Task Force has held 773 investigations, leading to the arrests of 240 individuals and over $18.9 million in stolen merchandise recovered.

The Organized Retail Crime Task Force is responsible for collaborating with allied law enforcement agencies and district attorneys to identify and prosecute organized theft rings, recover lost merchandise, collaborate with the retail industry to reduce theft and improve safety for shoppers. gov.ca.gov

Retail Crime Remains Top Issue in DA Recall Attempts & 2022 Top Cop Race
After looters ransack Bay Area stores, crime rises as 2022 state campaign issue

For evidence that crime will likely be a key issue for California voters in next year’s election, look no further than this weekend.

On Sunday, a pack of looters robbed a jewelry store in a Hayward mall, smashing glass cases and absconding with the valuables into waiting cars. Also Sunday, Walnut Creek police recommended that businesses close early, citing intelligence that the 80 thieves who ransacked a Nordstrom on Saturday night could strike again. Officials labeled the Nordstrom robbery as “organized retail theft” and said it was possibly linked to a series of burglaries in San Francisco on Friday night.

In San Francisco, social media videos showed masked looters sprinting out of high-end stores in Union Square — including Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, Burberry and Bloomingdale’s — with arms full of stolen merchandise worth thousands of dollars. Police arrested eight suspects and seized two cars and two guns, while Mayor London Breed announced plans to restrict vehicle access to Union Square to limit thieves escaping in getaway cars.

John Chachas, whose family owns luxury retailer Gump’s in Union Square: “The mayor and her entire team should resign. You can’t really run a retail enterprise if you have to board up the windows five weeks before the critical Christmas selling season.”

Adding to the city’s woes, the San Francisco Chronicle published a glut of stories over the weekend that suggest residents are increasingly frustrated by its response to crime — and fearful for their own safety.

The flurry of shoplifting and shootings could pose challenges for San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin — a progressive prosecutor who’s facing a recall election in June and is being blamed for store closures — and Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, whose controversial policies are the subject of a recent New York Times Magazine deep dive and driving a second attempt to recall him. The trends could also prove consequential in the 2022 elections, when voters will choose California’s next top cop. calmatters.org

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Christmas Parade Killer - Violent Re-Offender Fresh Out of Jail

Low or No Bail Trend Got Christmas Parade Killer Released Nov. 5th
Waukesha parade attack suspect was out on ‘inappropriately low’ bond, DA admits

Even the DA is investigating the inappropriate $1,000 bail, given his prior charges and violent history.

The man arrested over the deadly Christmas parade attack in Wisconsin should have been behind bars following an arrest earlier this month, but was released on an “inappropriately low” bond days before the attack, the district attorney admitted Monday.

Darrell Brooks, 39, is charged with five counts of intentional homicide over the deadly crash on Sunday in Waukesha that left five dead and at least 48 injured, police said.

Brooks was out on bond at the time of Sunday’s tragedy after he allegedly punched the mother of his child and purposefully ran her “over with his vehicle” in a Milwaukee gas station parking lot on Nov. 2, according to court documents.

He was arrested and charged that same day with resisting or obstructing an officer, reckless endangering safety, disorderly conduct, bail jumping and battery.

The Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office said Monday it had launched an internal probe into how Brooks was given such a low bond given the seriousness of the charges and his criminal history. nypost.com

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US: 48.7M Cases - 794.8K Dead - 38.6M Recovered
Worldwide: 258.5M Cases - 5.1M Dead - 234M Recovered

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Private Industry Security Guard Deaths: 325  
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Cases Surge 30% This Month
How to Make Sense of the Latest Covid Surge
It is a maddening development. Almost two years after Covid began spreading, it is still here, again creating anxiety as Americans prepare to gather for the holidays. The seemingly obvious explanation for the recent rise in cases is the weather. As temperatures have dropped, more activities have moved indoors, where the Covid virus tends to spread. And the weather surely plays some role in the surge.

The bad news about the virus’s unpredictability is that surges can sneak up on us: The lack of a Covid increase across most of northern North America a month ago was not as reassuring as it may have seemed.

The good news is that the virus can also surprise in pleasant ways. This winter, cases are not guaranteed to keep rising. Keep in mind that they peaked in early January last winter, before plummeting about 75 percent by late February. In coming weeks, I’d encourage you to ignore most Covid prognostications. Nobody knows what will happen next. nytimes.com

Vaccine Mandate Legal Fight Continues
Biden seeks to revive workplace vaccine mandate
The Biden administration on Tuesday asked a federal court to reinstate a workplace vaccine mandate that was put on hold earlier this month.

In court papers filed overnight, the administration urged a Cincinnati-based federal appeals court to lift a court order blocking the public health rule, which requires larger businesses to have employees receive the COVID-19 vaccine or undergo regular testing and mask-wearing.

“Delaying this standard would endanger many thousands of people and would likely cost many lives per day,” government lawyers argued. “With the reopening of workplaces and the emergence of the highly transmissible Delta variant, the threat to workers is ongoing and overwhelming.”

The administration’s request is the most significant legal move the administration has made since the case was moved earlier this month to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, where numerous legal challenges to the mandate have been combined into a single lawsuit. thehill.com

Self-Checkout Use Surges During COVID
How Retailers Can Improve Self-Checkout

The technology has gotten better. But it still has a long way to go.

In 2020, shipments of self-checkout machines increased by 25% globally, as the pandemic prompted more shoppers to look for a way to avoid contact with other people, according to research and consulting firm RBR.

And there’s no question that the technology for self-checkout has improved over the years; shoppers are a lot less likely to get an “unexpected item in the bagging area,” forcing them to wait for a store employee to clear the way for them to continue shopping. But the customer experience is still far from perfect. Customers may face delays due to difficult-to-scan items, an inability to find the code for a product they’re buying, or weighing errors that require an employee to fix. Other failure points include bagging and paying. In fact, in a survey of 2,000 shoppers and retailers by customer-experience-technology company Raydiant, 67% said they had experienced some form of failure at a self-service checkout.

In their effort to address these issues, retailers and researchers have learned a lot about how things can go wrong with self-checkout, how consumers perceive the technology, and what retailers need to do to get more people to use it.

People are more willing to use self-checkout, but they can get easily turned off after a bad experience.

Recent surveys suggest customers are warming up to self-checkout machines. Before the pandemic, some 30% of consumers preferred using self-checkout, but that figure jumped to 45% in the first 18 months of the pandemic, according to Praveen Adhi, a partner at McKinsey who leads the firm’s retail-operations practice in the Americas. What’s more, the proportion of consumers who said they would be more likely to use self-checkout than before the pandemic rose to 36% in August 2021 from 27% in March 2020. wsj.com

COVID Era Employee Spying - The Pros & Cons
Employer surveillance during COVID has damaged trust

Increasing use of staff surveillance by employers during the COVID-19 pandemic endangers trust in the workplace, according to a major new report

The study, for the European Commission's Joint Research Council, also warns employers not to sacrifice ethics for the sake of efficiency as it can backfire leading to mental health issues, productivity decline and staff resignations.

Webcam photographs, recording keystrokes and movement trackers have all been increasingly used by employers as millions of workers were forced to work from home in 2020.

The demand for employee monitoring software increased by 108 percent in April 2020, according to the major review of research literature on workplace surveillance from the past four decades.

Author Professor Kirstie Ball, of the School of Management at the University of St Andrews, said: "There is a clear need for trust to be rebuilt in the workplace between staff and employers post-COVID.

"Where monitoring has a specific purpose such as health and safety, it can actually reassure staff. Or in development and training it can provide valuable feedback.

"However, it can also have negative impacts too. A heavy focus on monitoring the quantity of output can reduce work quality.

"Where there is no explicit purpose for the monitoring, and information is collected for its own sake, negative attitudes can result including: perceptions of decreased fairness and justice, decreased satisfaction, increased stress and a decline in trust."

Excessive monitoring, according to the report, can be considered by staff as demonstrating a lack of confidence or belief in employees. Low trust in the workplace can then cause a vicious cycle. phys.org

Pandemic Whistleblowers
Working From Home Could Be Giving Corporate Whistleblowers the Push They Need
Greater numbers of people working from home during the coronavirus pandemic could be having an added effect: More workers feel emboldened to report possible corporate malfeasance directly to regulators.

The 12,210 tips received by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission from the U.S. and 133 other countries was a 76% increase from the prior year and the largest number the program has received in a single fiscal year since the program was established by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, according to the whistleblower office’s annual report to Congress published last week.

The tip volume began to increase in spring 2020, when some whistleblower lawyers began to suggest that the increase could be linked to would-be tipsters working outside the reach of snooping colleagues and managers.

The most recent report, while demonstrating the program’s continued success, also could indicate the remote-working environment might be making tipsters less concerned about possible workplace intimidation, said Erika Kelton, a partner at law firm Phillips & Cohen LLP who represents whistleblowers. She added that her practice also has seen a steadily increasing number of people reaching out over the past year.

“There can be a corporate culture of silence and a culture of certain practice being OK when you’re doing it,” she said. “When you’re not in the office, that culture becomes very diffused...The bounds of loyalty [are] a bit lowered as well.” risk.cmail19.com

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CISA Holiday Threat Alert
CISA Urges Critical Infrastructure to Be Alert for Holiday Threats

CISA and the FBI share steps organizations should take to better protect against security threats during holidays and weekends.

As Americans across the country get ready for turkey and travel this Thanksgiving, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the FBI issued a warning to all organizations, but especially critical infrastructure, about security threats they might face during the holiday season.

"Recent history tells us that this could be a time when these persistent cyber actors halfway across the world are looking for ways — big and small — to disrupt the critical networks and systems belonging to organizations, businesses, and critical infrastructure," officials wrote in a statement.

While they have not identified any specific threats, officials noted this year's trends show attackers have chosen holidays and weekends, such as Independence Day and Mother's Day weekends, to launch serious ransomware campaigns. They urge organizations to examine their security posture and adopt best practices to manage their risk.

The recommendations include identifying IT security employees who would be available to work during weekends and holidays in the event a cyberattack occurs. They also advise implementing multifactor authentication for remote access and admin accounts; mandating strong passwords and ensuring they aren't reused across multiple accounts; and ensuring potentially risky services such as Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) are secure and monitored.

Officials also advise reviewing incident response and communication plans, and updating them if necessary, to reduce potential business impact if an incident occurs. darkreading.com

Post-COVID Cybersecurity Training
Why cybersecurity training needs a post-pandemic overhaul
COVID-19 may have ushered in the rise of remote work (either temporarily or permanently) but not all organizations were prepared to manage a fully remote workforce and the cybersecurity challenges that come with it.

Protecting information assets against threats and attacks can prove more difficult when all or half of your workforce is working remotely; being consistently proactive about it requires a level of cybersecurity-maturity very few companies have achieved. When McKinsey assessed the cybersecurity-maturity level of more than 100 companies and institutions in a number of industry sectors earlier this year, 70% of the organizations were found to be vulnerable against threats and attacks.

While information cybersecurity depends on many different aspects, companies should realize that their employees are the first line of defense and invest in cybersecurity awareness. Unfortunately, cybersecurity training still seems to be low on most employees’ priority list. According to a recent TalentLMS survey on the state of cybersecurity training, 61% of employees who took cybersecurity training failed a basic test.

The truth is that the average employee’s knowledge of cybersecurity threats and best practices is limited. Offering perfunctory cybersecurity training just to tick a box does not help employees build healthier habits and leaves companies exposed to cyberattacks and phishing scams.

But what is about the way most companies currently conduct their cybersecurity training that doesn’t work? And how can organizations effectively engage today’s employees in cybersecurity training to reduce instances of cyberattacks? helpnetsecurity.com

New Federal Cybersecurity Incident Reporting Requirements
Banks must report major cyber incidents within 36 hours under finalized regulation
Banks must report major cybersecurity incidents to federal officials within 36 hours under a rule that U.S. financial regulators finalized on Thursday.

Beginning in May 2022, financial executives will need to be more forthcoming about computer system failures and interruptions, such as ransomware or denial-of-service attacks that have the potential to disrupt customers’ ability to access their accounts, or impact the larger financial system.

The rule, dubbed the Computer-Security Incident Notification Requirements for Banking Organizations and Their Bank Service Providers, was cemented by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. There is currently no specific window that banks must repot such incident to the agencies in question.

The final approval comes as Congress weighs broader reporting rules for critical infrastructure owners and operators, and as the Transportation Security Administration has begun imposing reporting requirements on leading pipeline, rail and air transport companies.

The 36-hour timeline for banks falls between the leading proposals on Capitol Hill at around 72 hours, and the TSA rules at 12 hours. cyberscoop.com

GoDaddy Data Breach
Up to 1.2 million GoDaddy customers' data exposed in breach
Data connected with up to 1.2 million GoDaddy customers may have been accessed by an unauthorized party, the company reported to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Monday.

GoDaddy, a behemoth in the commercial web hosting and domain registrar space, reported that it discovered the apparent intrusion on Nov. 17, and that the improper access dated back to Sept. 6.

Using a compromised password, an unknown party accessed a GoDaddy system dedicated to managed WordPress services, where the company offers customers hosting and other content management features. Up to 1.2 million active and inactive customers’ email addresses and customer numbers were exposed, which could set them up for phishing attacks, Demetrius Comes, the company’s chief information security officer, wrote in the notice.

The active customers’ data included database usernames and passwords, and a subset of customers’ private SSL encryption keys were exposed, Comes wrote. Passwords have been reset and the company is in the process of issuing and installing new SSL certificates. cyberscoop.com

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