Walter Dubose was named Sr. Manager of LP for Bed Bath & Beyond.  Walter was previously Sr. Manager, Investigations & LP Systems for Ross Stores. He was with Ross for 12 years, also holding the positions of LP District Manager and Manager, Investigations & LP Systems for the clothing retailer. Walter holds a Criminal Justice/Law Enforcement Administration degree from San Joaquin Delta College and a Physics/Engineering degree from West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Congratulations, Walter!

Insider Threat: Texas Home Depot 'Third Party' worker gets prison, stole credit card data  A former Home Depot Inc. employee in Texas must serve 18 months in federal prison for stealing credit card numbers from nearly 37,000 customers. Marquadt, who did information technology work for Home Depot in Austin, TX., pleaded guilty in November to trafficking in stolen devices. Investigators say Marquadt wrote a computer program to help Home Depot with its tool rental system, then realized he had access to personal data of customers. An online security firm noticed an offering to sell credit card numbers. An undercover investigation involving agents from Atlanta, where Home Depot is based, led to Marquadt. Editor's Note: Here's a case where another 'third-party vendor' - an IT provider actually stole credit card data. mynews3.com

Make sure ex-employees don't walk out the door with your data  Employee turnover is a fact of life. It's hard enough to make sure proprietary information and sensitive data are properly protected when a person works for the company. Enforcing security policies with ex or soon-to-be-ex employees can be nearly impossible. It's important to have tools in place that enable the organization to monitor the data the employee has access to, and review recent activity to determine if there is anything to be concerned about. The scenario of a disgruntled employee stealing corporate data when leaving the company has received national attention recently due to ongoing litigation between the venture capital firm TPG Capital LP and Adam Levine, a former spokesperson for the firm. TPG is suing Levine and alleges that he stole confidential documents and other sensitive media after being denied a promotion. csoonline.com

Retailer Goes 'Associate Free' with Remote Monitoring  Hassless Mattress, which opened a few months ago, boasts that it has absolutely no in-store salespeople. That goes for opening and closing, too, which is done remotely. Management monitors the store via web cams, and shoppers can place their orders whenever they are ready on the in-store kiosks. In a report on radio station WUWM, shoppers seemed intrigued by the idea, if a bit mystified. One shopper kept expecting the salespeople to "pop out" of a back room. But she wasn't bothered when they didn't, because "it's not like I have big questions about a mattress. No, this doesn't bother me one bit. This is kind of nice." Store owners told the station they haven't turned a profit yet, because they've been spending a lot on marketing the concept. retailcustomerexperience.com

Target Hackers Hit Third Parking Service
Book2Park.com, an online parking reservation service for airports across the United States, appears to be the latest victim of the hacker gang that stole more than a 100 million credit and debit cards from Target and Home Depot. Book2park.com is the third online parking service since December 2014 to fall victim to this cybercriminal group. Last week, a new batch of credit card numbers [dubbed "Denarius"] went up for sale on Rescator[dot]cm, the cybercrime bazaar that earned infamy by selling tens of millions of cards stolen from Target and Home Depot. Multiple banks contacted by this author acquired a handful of cards from this new batch, and each of those financial institutions found the same pattern: All of the cards they bought had been issued to customers who recently made airport parking reservations at Book2Park.com. krebsonsecurity.com

Businesses warned of February 'Fraud Spree' - Could skyrocket 80%  Small businesses are being warned to be on their guard in February, with payments expert Worldpay predicting "unprecedented levels of attempted fraud". Data from Worldpay, the UK's leader in payment processing, suggests instances of fraud could rocket by as much as 80% in February as hackers start to capitalise upon customer data harvested during a hectic Christmas shopping period. Tim Lansdale, head of payment security at Worldpay, said: "We see a dip in fraud around Christmas as hackers go on the hunt for information, using the online sales rush to stockpile thousands of customer card details. It isn't until February that they start cashing in on all the data they've collected. Other breaches can last much longer; attackers might decide to keep returning to their targets, sometimes for years." During 2011-2014, the average data breach exposed 284 days of card payments. Worldpay's analysis showed breaches lasting from 11 days at the lowest end of the scale, to 1,723 days at the other extreme. retailtimes.co.uk

Weekly Retailer to Watch: Tory Burch - Fashion Retailer Doubles in Value in Two Years - Store Expansion on the Horizon?  This fashion retailers value recently hit $3.5 billion - an increase of about $1.25 billion over two years ago, They've built a management team that has stunned even the Wall Street gang. With hiring the former president and chief operating officer at Ralph Lauren Corp. Roger Farah, which was seen as a coup for Burch. Farah is widely regarded as one of the best ceo's in the fashion world and his arrival cast Burch's already well-regarded business in a new light for investors. "There are not a lot of brands today that have the momentum that Tory Burch does and now they have with Roger Farah." Farah isn't the only sign that Tory Burch continues to think big. Former Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ceo Lee Scott is also on the company's board. While adopting a slow-and-steady strategy, the Burch business has become more aggressive about expansion in the last 18 months. Beauty products were added in 2013 and watches came last year. Some of the company's backers are believed to be angling for an IPO this year or next, while others are willing to wait until 2017 or 2018. Handbags and footwear account for about 80 percent of the business. And 75 percent of revenues come from the U.S. wwd.com

Radio Shack's #1 shareholder may buy them in court auction & close hundreds of stores  Workers at several RadioShack stores said the company has told them to help clear out many locations in February by shipping big-ticket smartphones to nearby stores and slashing prices on remaining inventory. wsj.com

The tally of closed retail stores in Canada keeps growing  The tally of retail closures continues to grow in Canada with a new report from real estate company CBRE pegging the total to 1,114 stores in a little over three years. Jones New York added its name to the long list Thursday when it announced it was closing 127 stores, 36 of which are in Canada. The retailer's decision comes on heels of Target's decision to leave Canada and shutter 133 stores in the coming months. In total 16 brands have left the country since 2012. Here's the list, the number of locations and the year the chain closed:

Winter Storm Juno Update: Drives 40.8% drop in sales for retailers over 3 days  Analysis from RetailNext shows that between Monday, Jan. 26 and Wednesday, Jan. 28, 2015, store traffic at Northeast retailers dropped 35.6% from the same three-day period the prior year. chainstoreage.com

Senators Make Cybersecurity Info Sharing Bill a Top Priority  At a cybersecurity hearing for the Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, both sides of the aisle have said they're committed to making cybersecurity information sharing a priority and are hopeful that they'll be able to get a bill out of committee and passed this year. Helping organizations improve their cyberdefenses is one of the "top priorities" in Congress. Witnesses brought up a range of issues including protecting private customer data, the lack of liability protections that would encourage businesses to share information among themselves and the need to amend the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act update proposed this month by President Obama. wsj.com

Retailers targeted for financial information
According to Kaspersky Lab's survey of IT professionals worldwide, almost half of businesses in e-commerce/online retail (48%) and financial services sectors (41%) could lose some type of finance-related information over the course of a year through targeted attacks, application vulnerabilities and other forms of cyber-incidents. While the two business segments share this similarity, their attitudes towards security technology are different: only 53% of the e-commerce/online retail segment indicated that they "make every effort to keep anti-fraud measures up to date," which is 10% lower than the overall global average. Since the entire business model of online merchants is based on payment processing, this reluctance to invest in anti-fraud measures might cause business losses in case of a security incident. it-online.co

'Simple failures of policy' contributing to rise in cybercrime  According to an annual survey, theft of data and hacking were considered to pose the most critical cyber-related threats to retailers - but security companies have suggested that the industry is not doing enough to counter the threat of hackers and new digitally-aware criminals. James Lyne, global head of research at Sophos, provided Essential Retail with a demonstration last week highlighting how simple it can be for hackers to steal customer information at the point of sale (PoS) in-store and online. He even suggested there are still retailers running their PoS on Windows XP, which is no longer maintained by Microsoft, the software company behind the program. "Cyber criminals will go after low-hanging fruit," he remarked, before explaining that many businesses operating in the retail sector still rely on what he perceives as bare-bone protection such as firewalls and anti-virus solutions. "For an industry responsible for holding and safeguarding so much sensitive customer data, it's worrying to see the level of overconfidence and lack of awareness surrounding cybersecurity," Lyne added. "What amazes me is how often the breaches are the result of incredibly simple failures of policy, training or technology and not the result of cyber criminals being particularly clever." essentialretail.com

New Retail Crime Law in Massachusetts
THEFT FROM RETAIL STORES (H 1474) -- Creates new crimes relating to theft from retail stores. The new crimes include using duct tape or other devices that block sensors designed to set off an alarm if not removed by the cashier; using an emergency exit to escape following the theft; and creating a bogus sales receipt or UPC code. The measure also creates a new crime of working in an organized retail theft ring. Supporters said that these theft rings are estimated to cost Massachusetts retailers more than $160 million annually. nashobapublishing.com

Mississippi panel moves ahead with felony charges for cargo theft  A bill on the move at the Mississippi statehouse would dole out stiff punishment for truck, rail or container cargo thieves. Thieves who steal cargo from trucks loaded with controlled substances, or pharmaceuticals, valued at less than $10,000 would face fines up to $100,000 and/or up to 10 years in prison. Theft of controlled substances valued up to $1 million could result in as much as 25 years behind bars and/or fines up to $1 million. Loads valued in excess of $1 million could result in prison terms as long as 30 years and/or fines up to $1 million. landlinemag.com

Cache Is Said to Plan Liquidation After Bankruptcy Filing

Raptr Accounts Hacked, Accounts Compromised

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The Daily's 2,500 Store Closure Prediction in Q1 '15 Reached 1-28-15 - Store Closure Announcements Reach 3,171 Stores in 28 Days  As predicted the U.S. retail market's saturation coupled with the online impact and some struggling retailers have caused store closing announcements to reach 3,171 stores in the first month of 2015. As part of our commitment to continue to keep you informed we'll be listing the store closure announcements list in a side bar column on the Daily for the rest of this year. Which brings the question do we reach 10,000 closures this year. As this will be the a record year for closures. about.com

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