Employee accused of stealing more than $25,000 in groceries
An employee at a Tennessee grocery store is accused of stealing more than $25,000 worth of groceries over a nine-year period. Police responded to an embezzlement call at the Kroger. The Regional Organized Retail Crime Manager for Kroger told police he received information that a night stocker, Marvin Cash, had been stealing food multiple times per week during his shift. Witnesses at the store reportedly saw him taking food. When confronted, Cash reportedly admitted to stealing about $500 worth of groceries a week — mostly food — and that he had been stealing at that rate for a year, and less before then. Cash had worked for Kroger for nine years. Police released Cash with a misdemeanor citation for Wednesday’s theft of groceries, worth just under $100. He has not yet been charged with the other thefts or embezzlement. Surveillance video reportedly also shows Cash stealing. [Source: WPXI11 News]
$10,000 worth of baby formula shoplifted from 3 upstate NY retailers
State police say they’re looking for three men believed to have stolen $10,000 worth of powdered baby formula from several central New York Walmart stores. Security camera images show the suspects in the baby product aisle. In one photo, a man has a shopping cart brimming with cans of Enfamil powder. Troopers say formula was stolen at stores in Cortland, Johnson City and Cicero. Baby formula theft has been a problem at stores nationwide for years because it’s a high price item that’s always in demand. Some retailers keep it locked up. Thieves typically sell the formula at flea markets or at online sites like craigslist and eBay. A 12-ounce can of powdered Enfamil retails for $17 and makes 15 6 -ounce bottles of formula. [Source: AuburnPub]
Toys ‘R’ Us preparing for possible bankruptcy filing
Toys ‘R’ Us is working to put together a loan to fund its operations in a potential bankruptcy filing that could come before the holiday sales season, according to people familiar with the matter. The toy merchant’s move underscores the deep distress rippling through retailers of all sizes as consumers increasingly shop online at sellers such as Amazon.com Inc or go to discounters such as Walmart Stores Inc . The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that the company was considering filing for Chapter 11 protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Richmond, Virginia. There have been more than a dozen significant retail bankruptcies this year, but none for retailers as big as Toys ‘R’ Us, which has about $5 billion in debt and more than 1,600 stores worldwide. Part of the retailer’s current financial woes stem from vendors demanding tighter repayment terms over fears that Toys ‘R’ Us may file for bankruptcy, according to rerports. The tighter terms have added to the Wayne, New Jersey-based company’s cash crunch, they said. Toys ‘R’ Us tapped restructuring attorneys from Kirkland & Ellis LLP, CNBC reported this month. [Source: Fortune]
Five arrested in police’s latest shoplifting sting
Five people were arrested in Oxnard, California’s latest undercover shoplifting sting, authorities said. The operation went on from 1 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday at Walmart,, Oxnard police said. The law enforcement agency has been conducting sting operations at retailers that have been a hot spot for theft and other situations requiring a police response. The stings involve the store’s employees or loss-prevention agents signaling a team of officers inside and outside the store when they see a theft occurring, police said. The thieves are detained upon exiting the business without paying. In Friday’s sting, four Oxnard residents were arrested in connection with theft and one Oxnard resident was arrested on outstanding warrants, authorities said. Two of the suspects were also arrested in connection with narcotics offenses, authorities said. [Source: Ventura County Star]
Seven arrested in fraudulent credit card; ID scam
Seven people are behind bars accused of trying to purchase hundreds of dollars’ worth of items with fake credit cards. South Charleston, West Virginia, police got a tip from Kohl’s loss prevention associates that several men had opened credit accounts using stolen identities, according to a criminal complaint filed in Kanawha County Magistrate Court. Police got a description of the two vehicles and followed them to a Holiday Inn in South Charleston where the suspects tried to rent two rooms with stolen information, but their card was declined, according to the complaint. After the suspects left the hotel, police followed them and stopped them at the Sears Auto Shop to perform field interviews. When police stopped the vehicles, one of the suspects jumped out and ran inside the Charleston Town Center and was not found. The complaint said they also found another suspect asleep in one of the vehicles.
The complaint said when police approached the vehicle, they could smell marijuana and found a card reader/writer in a door pocket. According to the complaint, these devices are used to re-encode credit cards with stolen credit card information and to obtain card numbers. The complaint said a laptop computer, printer and a stack of blank checks were found in one of the vehicles. After conducting field interviews and searching the vehicles, police arrested seven people. Abraham Dousuah was arrested after police said he was found in possession of a fake ID. The complaint said he was the one who tried to rent the hotel room and that he had credit cards that contained information that had been re-encoded. Frederick Clark was arrested after providing an ID that had the same information as the stolen ID that Dousuah provided, the complaint said. All seven are being charged with conspiracy to steal identity and are being held on $25,000 bond. [Source: Fox11 Eyewitness News]
How the Equifax data breach happened: What we know now
How did it happen? Much is still unknown. But it came down to a flaw in a tool designed to build web applications, the company said in a press release this week. And Equifax admitted it was aware the security flaw a full two months before the company says hackers first gained accessed to its data. Some of the information hackers had access to includes names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and some driver’s license numbers. The tool is called Apache Struts, and it’s used by many large businesses and government organizations. Equifax used it to support its online dispute portal — where Equifax customers go to log issues with their credit reports. The flaw allowed hackers to take control of a website. A cybersecurity arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, US-CERT, “identified and disclosed” the Apache Struts flaw in March, Equifax said in a statement. And the company’s security department “was aware of this vulnerability at that time, and took efforts to identify and to patch any vulnerable systems.” Yet, according to the company, hackers exploited the flaw months later.
Equifax has said it discovered the data breach on July 29. On Friday, it said it waited until it “observed additional suspicious activity” a day later to take the affected web application offline. And on August 2 Equifax contacted Mandiant, a professional cybersecurity firm, to help the company assess what data had been compromised. With help from Mandiant, Equifax was able to determine a series of breaches had occurred from May 13 through July 30, the company said. Patching software at big corporations with many machines does take time. They must first identify the vulnerability, then implement and test the patch to make sure it doesn’t break anything before making it public. However, security experts say Equifax should have moved faster. “There’s really no excuse whether it’s a difficult patch or not, for an organization of that size with that kind of magnitude of data,” said Jon Hendren, director of strategy at security firm UpGuard. “When you’re a big organization like that, it’s a systemic failure of process and the blame goes straight to the top.” Equifax has also been widely criticized for waiting more than a month to alert its customers and shareholders about the hack. On Friday, the company announced its chief information officer and chief security officer are “retiring.” [Source: Erie News Now]
The post Breaking News in the Industry: September 18, 2017 appeared first on LPM.