SECURITY/RISK

The nation's retailers lost a staggering amount of money in 2016 due to shoplifting, organized crime, internal theft and other types of inventory shrink.    Inventory shrink totaled $48.9 billion in 2016, up from $45.2 billion the year before, as budget constraints left retail security budgets flat or declining, according to the annual National Retail Security Survey by the National Retail Federation and the University of Florida. The thefts amounted to 1.44% of sales, up from 1.38%.  

A majority of companies, including retailers, are confident about cyber-security, but their confidence may not be justified.      That’s according to “Cyber Risk in Consumer Business,” a report from Deloitte. The report is based on input from more than 400 CIOs, CISOs, CTOs and other senior executives.   

With fraudulent card-not-present (CNP) transactions on the rise, losses will become staggering over the next five years.    Retailers stand to lose $71 billion globally by 2022, driven by a number of factors, such as the United States' shift to Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) chip cards, delays in 3DS 2.0 (3D-Secure) and click-and-collect fraud. This was according to “Online Payment Fraud: Emerging Threats, Key Vertical Strategies & Market Forecasts 2017-2022,” a report from Juniper Research. 

A computer glitch is blamed for canceled orders and growing frustrations among Tesco’s home delivery customers.   An IT meltdown impacted orders filtering into the U.K.-based supermarket giant’s online grocery shopping system. The glitch impacted orders being placed online, as well as those scheduled for delivery, according to customer posts on Twitter.  

Merchants may be losing out on potential e-commerce sales due to shoppers’ concerns over the security of their information in the digital world.  

The Buckle is the latest cyber-crime target.   The teen apparel retailer was alerted that some guest credit card information was pilfered following purchases made at some of its retail stores. The chain launched a thorough investigation, which revealed that store payment data systems were infected with a form of malicious code, which was quickly removed.   

In a sobering statistic, one out of every 27 employees was apprehended for theft from their employer in 2016.   That's according to “The 29th Annual Retail Theft Survey,” conducted by Jack L. Hayes International, a loss prevention and inventory shrinkage control consulting firm. The survey is based on reports on over 380,000 shoplifting apprehensions that took place in 23 large retail companies, representing 16,038 stores with combined 2016 annual sales in excess of $370 billion.   

For the second time in less than three years, Kmart was hit by a malicious hack.   On Wednesday, May 31, Kmart’s parent company, Sears Holdings revealed that the chain was the victim of a security incident. The company became aware of the attack, which involved unauthorized credit card activity, following certain customer purchases made at some of its Kmart stores. Shoppers were alerted to the breach via email Wednesday evening.