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Where America's
Retail Sales Have Gone
Amazon Q1 North America Retail Up 23.5%
Amazon Q1 revenue $35.7B UP 22.6%
Amazon's giant retailing unit is gaining market share as
big department stores shut their doors and internet commerce goes
increasingly global.
Retail sales in North America were slightly stronger, up 23.5% in Q1
to $20.99 billion from $17.00 billion a year ago.
cnbc.com
digitalcommerce360.com
yahoo.com
Amazon Results: More
Evidence that Retailers Can't Rest Easy
Amazon's relentless rise has made it a source of fear and a topic of
conversation in retail boardrooms. Based on the results Amazon reported on
Thursday, those retail conversations are only going to grow more
pressing.
By themselves, the gains are impressive, but it's the fact that sales moved
sharply higher in tandem with strong profit growth that should grab
retailers' attention.
For years, Amazon was criticized for boosting sales at the cost of profit,
potentially a long-term vulnerability that could threaten its spending flow.
It has proved skeptics wrong. Amazon on Thursday posted its eighth
straight quarter of profit.
"Amazon is putting a lot of pressure on everyone to raise the game," said
Marc-Alexandre Risch, chief retail officer for beauty giant L'Oréal USA, at
a WWD Retail 20/20 conference in late March. In fact, at the event,
pretty much all of the speakers mentioned the disruptive force of Amazon.
It's not just Amazon's disruptive impact on their business that's being
felt. One speaker asked the roomful of about 200 mostly beauty and
fashion industry attendees to raise their hands if their household has a
Prime membership. All but a few put their hands up.
Consumer Intelligence
Research Partners, or CIRP, in a report earlier this week, estimated
Amazon Prime, a key feature for keeping users engaged in its ecosystem, had
80 million US members as of March 31, up from 58 million a year
earlier. CIRP estimated that Prime customers spend on average $1,300 a year,
compared to about $700 for non-member customers.
emarketer.com
The New 'Wild West' of
Retail Fraud
Call Centers Are Weakest Link in Security
Only 17% of fraud in U.S. is domestic, majority
originated outside the U.S.
Criminals are increasingly spoofing caller ID using VoIP apps including
Skype or Google Voice to hide their identity and location, according to a
report released today by Pindrop Labs.
Call center fraud is rising at an astronomical rate, as technical weakness
becomes one of the three key contributors to its rapid rise, according to
the
2017 Call Center Fraud Report released today by Pindrop Labs.
Based on a review of more than 500 million calls last year, Pindrop found
fraud rates soared 113% over the previous year. That has resulted in a fraud
rate of 1 in 937 calls in 2016, compared to 1 in 2,000 calls in the previous
year. And this problem has morphed from being a responsibility of
the call center operations to one of IT security.
When we first started the company [Pindrop]..., it was a call center
operations headache. As the attacks have increased, losses continue to
increase, and the phone is being used as part of a multichannel attack, the
CISO is becoming more and more involved," says David Dewey, director of
Pindrop Labs.
Smooth Talking
Hackers Conning Your Operators
One of the catalysts for this growth comes from attackers'
enhanced skill in social engineering to coax information,
or inadvertent nefarious action, out of call center employees,
as well as the discovery of new spoofing and voice distortion technologies
to give criminals more options when using the phone, according to the
report.
"Reaching a call center and speaking with an agent provides the fraudster
with an upper hand. A call center agent's job is to provide quality customer
service and not stop fraud," he added.
"Caller ID Spoofing coincided with the advent and popularity of VoIP in the
mid-2000s. We are seeing more and more fraudsters discover how easy this is
to do and we expect this to continue to grow. Heck, there's even an Android
app out there that will spoof calls for you," Dewey says.
While every industry in the study is seeing increased fraudulent activity,
the retail industry has an unusually high incidence rate:
last year, one in nearly 500 retail call center calls was fraudulent, up
from one in 1,000 in 2014.
Against the backdrop of EMV card rollouts, improved online payment security
and retailers' traditionally less sophisticated call-center security
measures against their financial industry counterparts, fraud rings have now
moved to exploit retailers' call centers, the study found.
"The call center has become the weakest link from a security
perspective," said Dewey. "This is catching retailers by surprise.
At the call center, your No. 1 priority is giving good customer service and
resolving problems quickly, not on detecting and preventing fraud.
darkreading.com
Illinois "Second
Theft-Enabling Bill, HB 3856" - Raising Felony Threshold to $2,500
The Illinois State Commission on Criminal Justice and Sentencing Reform has
proposed that stealing under $2,000 from retail stores should not be a
felony and has led to the introduction of HB 3337. A second
theft-enabling bill, HB 3856, would go farther increasing that threshold to
$2,500, threatening the safety and well-being of our businesses and
communities. All of this is based on the myth that retail theft is not that
bad and will save the state money.
Proponents argue that stealing from stores is a crime of need and that
increasing the threshold will keep first time offenders out of prison. But
80 percent of retail thieves have the money in their pocket to pay for the
item(s) they were attempting to steal. Further, based on the items
most frequently stolen, which include high-end vacuum cleaners, GPS devices,
liquor and designer clothing, shoplifting is not based on need at all.
According to the FBI, retail theft is increasing, a claim that contradicts
the report by the commission, which used larceny instead of the more
accurate retail theft numbers. Over the last five years, stealing from
merchants has increased 17 percent, and the value of stolen items has
increased 30 percent. For states that have increased the felony threshold,
the rate of theft from stores is even higher. In Los Angeles alone, store
theft increased 25 percent the year California raised its threshold. These
numbers become even more concerning when you take into account that it's
just based on recorded thefts, and the average thief steals 48 times before
they are caught.
Allowing thieves to steal more by increasing the felony threshold will bring
about many losers, including our local businesses and our communities. There
is only one group that would win: thieves who would receive the green light
to steal more. Most importantly, the facts don't support the proposal.
herald-review.com
Wells Fargo Account Scam
Targeted Undocumented Immigrants, Lawsuit Claims
Wells Fargo employees were instructed to "round up" immigrants in the
country illegally, corral them into a branch office, and cajole them into
opening bank accounts, new court filings claim. Wells Fargo employees from
multiple states say they were ordered to target undocumented workers at
construction sites, factories, and a 7-Eleven.
nbcnews.com
Big Lots to Pay $3.5M
for Illegal Hazardous Waste Dumping in California
Big Lots Stores Inc. has been ordered to pay more than $3.5 million
following settlement of a lawsuit alleging illegal hazardous waste disposal
at 206 California stores and a Rancho Cucamonga-based distribution center
set for relocation to Apple Valley. vvdailypress.com
NYPD Rolls-Out 1,200
Court Ordered Pilot - Body Cameras
The
New York Police Department - on a mission to put body cameras on all
23,000 of its patrol officers in two years - is poised to join one of
the biggest experiments in modern policing. Yesterday, it
began a court-ordered pilot program
that will set the stage for the larger rollout. Mayor Bill de Blasio
has promised to expand the program to
all patrol officers by 2019 if he is re-elected in November.
The pilot program is designed to answer a persistent question about a novel
technology that has been adopted by thousands of police agencies around the
country: What effect do body cameras have on policing?
From big cities like Los Angeles to small towns like Hamden, Conn., New York
lags other municipalities in equipping officers with body cameras. Still,
the experiment in America's largest Police Department is likely to resonate
across the country, especially in jurisdictions still
weighing whether to use the cameras or to
tweak existing programs.
Police officials in New York say the program is designed to be the
most rigorous scientific study of the effects of body cameras so far.
About 1,200 officers working the evening shift in 20 precincts will be given
the cameras as part of a study that will compare them with roughly the same
number of officers in 20 similar precincts who will not wear the cameras.
After a year, officials hope to report whether the cameras made a difference
areas like officer performance, civilian complaints, crime levels and
prosecutions.
The 34th Precinct in Upper Manhattan's Washington Heights and Inwood
neighborhoods will be the first to wear the cameras. Washington
Heights and Inwood, both Dominican enclaves, were once epicenters of
the city's violent drug epidemic. Bifurcated by Broadway, the area
was considered so dangerous that the city created a new precinct - the 33rd
- to help combat crime there.
nytimes.com
Wholesaler/Retailer IT
Director Convicted Of $5M Fraud Sceme
Bought Merchandise - Sold it on the side
The Department of Justice said Justin Pennington, 30, created a
fraudulent company called 3 Kings, LLC while working as an
information technology director at the Wholesale House, an
Ohio-based company with offices in Jacksonville.
Pennington and his alleged co-conspirators, using the 3 Kings company,
purchased products from the Wholesale House at or near cost, then
resold those products to consumers and retailers, illegally competing with
the Wholesale House's customers, the DOJ said.
The DOJ said Pennington and his co-conspirators spent tens of
thousands of dollars, while Pennington incurred credit card balances of up
to $100,000 a month, while owing his employer millions of dollars.
The Wholesale House owners also testified during the trial that they infused
more than $7 million into the company to ensure its survival and to protect
the jobs of the company's more-than 60 employees.
The mastermind of the scheme sentencing hearing Aug. 2.
news4jax.com
Two NOPD Pled Guilty to
Cigarette Smuggling in Fed. court
A pair of New Orleans police officers pleaded guilty in federal court
Wednesday, admitting they were paid thousands of dollars to haul more than
13,000 cartons of contraband smokes on two trips early last year to
North Carolina. Paid $4k for each trip.
Also pleading guilty Wednesday was Anwar "Tony" Abdelmajid-Ahmad, 29, an
employee of Louisa Xpress in New Orleans who was accused of
purchasing the illegal smokes - Seneca and Marlboro cigarettes and
Natural Goodies and Swisher Sweets cigars - from a confidential FBI
source.
theadvocate.com
Across the Pond
UK Retailers Feeling the Same Pain
Full time jobs in the sector fell 3.9 per cent year-on-year last
quarter.
The recent losses add to the estimated 84,000 jobs slashed in the
final quarter of 2016, when the BRC's figures showed the number of
jobs fell by three per cent. The first three months of the year have been
particularly tough for UK retail, with several high street names falling
into administration (Chapter 11 in the U.S.).
And, experts have predicted many more recognisable retailers will be folding
throughout the year. cityam.com
Ahold Delhaize Announce
New 'Decentralized' Brand Structure
Now a $40B, Nearly 2,000 Store East Coast
Grocery Giant
The "brand-centric" structure, announced
by the company in February, would allow for the local brands of Ahold
Delhaize - Stop & Shop, Giant-Carlisle (which the company now calls
Giant/Martin's), Giant-Landover (now called Giant Food), Hannaford, Food
Lion and Peapod, brought together in last year's merger of parents Ahold and
Delhaize - to develop distinctive commercial strategies in their market
areas with dedicated teams devoted to category merchandising, assortment,
pricing, promotions, marketing and format.
Those brands will share sourcing and other
scale-advantaged services through a central hub called Retail Business
Services that was established late last year.
supermarketnews.com
Does the Petty Crime
Exception in Visa Applications for U.S. Entry Apply to Retail Fraud
Convictions?
Retail Fraud is considered to be a crime of moral
turpitude (CIMT). A conviction for retail fraud may or may not
disqualify you for a visa in the United States. The issue becomes whether or
not the conviction is classified as a petty offense
pursuant to INA section 212(a)(2)(A)(ii)(II).
As laws vary by state, most retail fraud offenses are petty offenses in
virtually all states as long as the person does not already have a
conviction for a CIMT. A jail sentence that includes suspended period of
incarceration would constitute a CIMT if the length of the suspended
sentence was greater than 6 months. Also, in cases where a person is
sentenced to more than 6 months in jail but serves under 6 months due to
jail overcrowding, good time credit, or jail programs that suspend time for
completion of the program would still be considered to have committed a
CIMT.
It is important to note that advisory convictions/sentences are still
considered convictions for United States immigration matters. Diversion
programs that do not require a guilty plea generally are not considered to
be convictions.
When submitting an application the government official who is charged with
reviewing your visa application may request that you provide a certified
copy of your conviction from the sentencing court and a copy of the statute
(the applicable law concerning your conviction) and the penalty allowable by
law.
Deportation can occur when the maximum possible penalty for your
conviction is 1 year or more in most cases where you are convicted
and are seeking a visa.
michigancriminalattorneysblog.com
FTC Approves Dollar
General Buying 323 Dollar Express Stores
Weis Markets to open 7
new stores, remodel 14, 2 fuel centers, expand DC
Midwest Wholesale
Distributors Owner & Counterfeit 5-Hour Energy Ringleader Gets 7 Yrs & Has
to Pay $20M
Quarterly Same Store
Sales Results
Domino's Q1 domestic company owned comp's up 14.1%, domestic franchise
comp's up 9.8%,
International comp's up 4.3%, sales up 13.2%
Starbucks Q2 comp's up 3%, revenue up 6%
Sears Canada Q4 comp's up 1.3%, sales down 16.2%, full yr comp's down 4.3%,
sales down 19.3%
Arby's Q1 U.S. comp's up 1.6%
Tractor Supply Q1 comp's down 2.2%, sales up 6.1%
Carter's Q1 U.S. retail comp's down 3.5%, consolidated sales up 1%
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IAFCI One Day
Training Event On-Line
Registration is Open!
 The
IAFCI Southern California Chapter is pleased to announce that
On-Line Registration is now available for the Annual IAFCI One Day
Training Event scheduled for May 3, 2017 at the Rio Hondo Event
Center/Golf Club located in Downey, California. Please visit the
IAFCI website at
www.iafci.org.
For
IAFCI Members, please log-in using your IAFCI Username and Password;
you will find the
registration link under "Upcoming Events and Webinars."
For guests and Non-IAFCI Members, please visit our home page and
click on the moving scroll, under
Training Events and Webinars,
"5/3/2017 Southern California Chapter One Day Training."
The IAFCI Southern California Chapter is excited to
partner with Capital One Financial and offer a number of current
topics concerning financial and cyber-related crimes!
More
information, including registration and payment methods can be found
here
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1,935 Breaches - 15% Hit
Retail
The Verizon 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report
Cyberespionage & Ransomware Attacks Increasing
Cyberespionage is now the most common type of attack seen in manufacturing, the
public sector and now education, warns the
Verizon 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report. Nearly 2,000 breaches were
analyzed in this year's report and more than 300 were espionage-related, many of
which started life as phishing emails.
In addition, organized criminal groups escalated their use of ransomware to
extort money from victims: this year's report sees a 50 percent increase
in ransomware attacks compared to last year. Despite this increase
many organizations still rely on out-of-date security solutions and
aren't investing in security precautions. In essence, they're opting to
pay a ransom demand rather than to invest in security services that could
mitigate against a cyberattack.
Major findings include:
Malware is big business: Fifty-one (51) percent of data
breaches analyzed involved malware.
Phishing is still a go-to technique: In the 2016 DBIR, Verizon
flagged the growing use of phishing techniques linked to software installation
on a user's device. In this year's report, 95 percent of phishing attacks follow
this process. Forty-three percent of data breaches utilized phishing, and the
method is used in both cyber-espionage and financially motivated attacks.
Pretexting is on the rise: Pretexting is another tactic on the
increase, and the 2017 DBIR showed that it is predominantly targeted at
financial department employees - the ones who hold the keys to money transfers.
Email was the top communication vector, accounting for 88 percent of financial
pretexting incidents, with phone communications in second place with just under
10 percent.
Smaller organizations are also a target: Sixty-one (61) percent of
victims analyzed were businesses with fewer than 1,000 employees.
"Cyber-attacks targeting the human factor are still a major issue," says Bryan
Sartin, executive director, Global Security Services, Verizon Enterprise
Solutions. "Cybercriminals concentrate on four key drivers of human behavior to
encourage individuals to disclose information: eagerness, distraction, curiosity
and uncertainty. And as our report shows, it is working, with a significant
increase in both phishing and pretexting this year."
75% were perpetrated by outsiders and featured hacking. 15% targeted
retailers and accommodations and were malware installed via malicious email
attachments.
Gas pump skimmers more than TRIPLED.
Point of sale (POS) environments continue to provide rich pickings for
the bad guys, with nearly 98% of all recorded POS attacks resulting in a
confirmed data breach. The focus of attacks has shifted from hotel chains to
restaurants and small businesses.
Retailers face Denial of Service attacks, skimming theft, and web
application attacks account for 81% of all incidents.
verizon.com
Verizon DBIR Shows Attack
Patterns Vary Widely By Industry
Point-of-sale breaches affected
organizations in the accommodations and food service space disproportionately
more so than retail organizations.
The data provides further evidence that organizations can benefit from
having a better understanding of the threats that are specific to their
industries and sectors.
What the breach data shows is that every organization should mitigate
its own risks, he said. "It's very easy to look at the newest attacks.
But if it is not one of your risks, you need to prioritize the things
that are," and apply the appropriate controls and mitigations, Bassett
says.
darkreading.com
Appearing This Week: The
Five Profiles on the Insider Threat
Profiling The Insider
Threat - Breaking Down a Complex Security Term -
Part Five
From a disgruntled employee looking to destroy IP, or an opportunist looking
to make money by selling data, all the way to a security-naïve worker that
might unwittingly let criminals into your network without knowing it, there
are dozens of factors that can influence the kind of insider threat you may
well face.
Understanding the threat is one of the most difficult
parts of managing and mitigating the risk, so I've identified five
insider threat profiles to show the complexity of the problem.
Fraudster Frank
Frank is a customer rep, and he
has had enough. Day in, day out he is blamed in his position for every issue
a customer has faced while on the phone, and he doesn't make enough money to
justify it. HoweverHow he's been monitoring some nefarious websites, and
thinks he has come up with a plan to make his working life just that little
more tolerable.
By collecting the information from the customers that
he speaks to, there is a lucrative trade in selling this personally
identifiable information (PPII) on the dark web as a CSV file. Frank may
well have always had this plan in mind, or been turned to doing this through
circumstance. Regardless, he isn't particularly difficult to detect, as long
as you have the right technology in place.
Dealing with a fraudster
will almost certainly require outside help. If someone in your organization
has stolen and sold customer PII, they are a criminal, so your best bet is
to let the authorities handle the situation once you've provided them with
adequate proof.
It's vital to follow procedure and act swiftly in
these situations, as the best-case scenario is that data is being sold on
the black market - the worst is that you could face a class-action suit for
data mismanagement.
The insider threat is complex
Through all of these profiles, it's clear that the insider threat poses
significant risk to organizations and is very complex. If you are going to
adequately protect against this, you need to have a robust understanding of
the different types of threats you are going to face, and the motivations
and situations that give rise to these.
With this understanding, and
the right tools in place, your business stands a far greater chance of
mitigating these threats and keeping your business-critical data safe.
infosecurity-magazine.com
Security-as-a-service model gains traction
With mid-market companies feeling an increasing need to devote time and
resources to network security, the security-as-a-service model is gaining
traction, according to new research released by 451 Research.
"The security challenge for mid-tier businesses is multi-dimensional," Daniel
Cummins, analyst at 451 Research, said in a statement. "For these businesses,
everything seems to be increasing - attack frequency, compliance requirements,
complexity, costs and the number of security products that need to be managed.
Cloud-based security-as-a-service offers potentially significant advantages in
terms of simplicity and access to security that may prove to be less complex and
expensive than traditional approaches."
Eighty-two percent of study respondents said they spend 20 to 60 hours a week of
in-house staff resources to procure, implement and manage security products.
Nearly 75 percent of respondents said they dedicate three to five full-time
employees to manage their security. The financial hit to these businesses
averaged $178,000 annually just for network security, representing 39 percent of
an organization's total IT budget.
csoonline.com
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industry's only conference dedicated to the science of interviewing didn't
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day and a half value-packed agenda. A diverse group of attendees from many
backgrounds and professions included Vice Presidents, Directors, Regional and
District Managers from the private sector, as well as law enforcement personnel
from the public sector. 
