LPRC - CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 118 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan & Tony D’Onofrio

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

IMPACT Conference Amazing Enrollment! A look at the Future Retail Store! In this week’s episode, our co-hosts discuss the latest data on retail shrink, a look at IMPACT’s planning process, an exploratory look at the state of global economies, a discussion on the importance of innovation, and a continued look at eastern Europe involved cyber attacks. Listen in to stay updated on hot topics in the industry and more! The post CrimeScience – The Weekly Review – Episode 118 with Dr. Read Hayes, Tom Meehan & Tony D’Onofrio appeared first on Loss Prevention Research Council.

Hi, everyone, and welcome to Crime Science. In this podcast, we explore the science of crime and the practical application of this science for loss prevention and asset protection practitioners as well as other professionals. Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Crime Science, the podcast. This is the latest in our weekly update series. Today, I'm joined by, as always, our co-host, Tom Meehan Tony D'Onofrio and our producer, Diego Rodriguez. And we're just going to talk a little bit about some of the emerging issues and things going on. I'm going to talk just for just a minute in this case about the COVID-19. We still see a lot of reporting and some research around long COVID. It's a concern. And it seems like you see these infections of an individual or a group where overwhelmingly most people are not experiencing severe symptoms in the first order and don't seem to have lingering symptoms.

But there are just enough. And that's critical individuals that are experiencing one, the other, or both, and that's what's interesting too, mild symptoms during the infection phase, and then very serious later or some combination. So, I know research continues looking at different medications and other therapies, so we'll stay tuned on that infection rates compared to last year at this time appear to be way down still serious still high enough certainly clustered in different areas we're in the university town where you've got you know almost 60,000 students coming in from all over the place and others their parents moving them in and then now classes

starting so a little higher infection infection rate here in Gainesville than, say, other areas that don't have that kind of movement, but still doesn't seem to be very serious in this area as well. So, still a concern. Just about 120 vaccine candidates still in human clinical trials, phase one, two, and three. So that's important and critical and a good sign. And we continue to hear about, again, a lot of this science. A lot of the findings come out of the research for different vaccines and for different therapies that will be repurposed and adjusted for future contagions that we're confronted with. A lot of learnings we saw through the infrastructure that had to be developed for testing and for treating, as well as trying to reduce infection rates and

seriousness of disease and so on. So those will be some of the upsides. Moving over to the LPRC front, we continue very heavy planning and preparations and a lot of action and activities around 2022 LPRC Impact Conference. We're expecting a pretty significant enrollment again this year, between 300 and 400 executives coming here to Gainesville to meet and greet and work and share and learn and build relationships. So I just can't tell you how excited we are here. We've got a nice team here at the LPRC on the operations front. On the operations front, Diego Rodriguez, you know, our able producer, playing a very key role in all fronts around logistics and coordination before, during, and after the actual event. And I mean, that's a lot. You've got Brian Hayes, our finance guy, working almost 24-7, it seems, sometimes as well as Diego does. 24-7, it seems sometimes as well as Diego does. He's working across helping everybody get their tickets, get registered for our sponsors from our solution partner members,

helping them get on board, register, as well as Tom Keel supporting a little bit on that. But Brian getting people invoiced and so on so that we can pay the bills. But we've got a ton of sponsorship, another record here to make sure that we can put on a world-class event. We also have Wilson Gabrino working away on getting all of our retailers engaged, heavily engaged in the organization. We're having really almost daily now one or two of our major retailers. Bear in mind, we're talking about 70 corporations in all their divisions, getting on there, meeting with the leaders and their team, talking about how to get their people more and more engaged here at LPRC in our seven working groups, across our six events, our webinars, leveraging our knowledge center with hundreds of research reports and briefs and video clips and on and on, all the resources they need, but getting them into MPAC, getting them registered, making sure that they're able to use the HUVA app and so on. We've got Kim Refere working away also on some of the event logistics and coordinating with some of the retailers as well, but making

sure that the Sunday planning and dry runs go well, all of us working together on that, making sure that the Sunday AT&T sponsored dinner and reception goes well for the LPRC Innovate Advisory Panel, the Board of Advisors, the LPRC team, and of course, our impact planning committee that gets together throughout the year. The band gets together every year, taking them to dinner and let everybody celebrate and relax for just a few minutes. And then Monday, going into the golf event at the Ironwood Golf and Country Club. That's going to be a super event. We've got a ton of people registered for that. It's a neat place to play golf, a great course, I understand, as a non-golfer, but we've also got a lot of wild turkey and quail and deer, even the occasional alligator. So we've

got gators out there as well as on campus. And then we roll into a series of events. We've got the Board of Advisors meeting where we get all our board together. A lot of key issues to go through and have fun with and planning out LPRC now. And next, we've got our I mentioned before, the LPRC Innovate Advisory Panel is getting together here. So that's made up of 30 major retailers they're innovation people they're working on looking repurposing now improving now but just as critically looking ahead and developing new tactics and technologies and integrations they're getting together the number ones all of our vice

presidents directors senior directors from across our retailers get together at every ignite and impact excuse, excuse me, for Strategy At, in this case, Strategy At Impact. We've got a super faculty member here from the Warrington College of Business, University of Florida. He's a real innovator and leader. He'll be going through more in depth on leveraging human-centered design thinking, some innovation strategies for top retail asset protection

or loss venture leaders. We'll go through also get a great presentation on very high speed or low latency, high security, high bandwidth connections through 5G from a very senior AT&T executives will be going through describing what that looks like, how that's being implemented in retailers and other organizations, but also here at the University of Florida and LPRC. So we roll into our Monday evening reception.

This is going to be an amazing event at the UF Innovate Hub Complex that is centered there in the four-block area that we call the Safer Places Lab. You'll see five, and by impact, you may see six to eight platforms loaded with radar and LIDAR and thermal radar, different types of IR and other cameras, PTZs and fixed of IR and other cameras, PTZs and fixed day-night capabilities. You'll see microphones and electronic sensors, ways to deter, to disrupt, to document, to fuse together across the four square block areas. There'll be tours there. The Innovate Hub also houses, of course, our six, now six, indoor labs that we've got. So we'll be going to the SOC lab, the ideation lab,

the simulation lab, look at some of the VR virtual lab that we've got. We'll be in the activation lab and the parking lot lab, interior lab part, as well as the engagement lab with over 200 integrated technologies in that space. So it's going to be a neat event. We're inviting all of our LPRC members to come, all members. Organizations have two free seats to our six events, and incredibly for the Impact Conference, a lot of people are going past that. If you've got a leadership role, there are other ways to do that. So that's a little bit about the LPRC Impact Conference 2022 version. Now, if I might, let me head over to Tony D'Onofrio. Tony, take it away.

Thank you, Reid. And again, great updates. Let me this week do something special. I'm actually doing a new webinar next week where I'm covering the future of retail. The actual presentation is called the Inflationary Recession Risky and Disruptive Future of Retail. And so this week, I'm going to give this audience a preview in terms of some of the material that I will cover. The agenda includes a summary of the global challenges that are in around the world. I'm also going to go into explaining why retail is resilient. Then I'm going to summarize some

of the latest statistics in terms of retail shrink. I'm going to speak why it's time to move for more innovation speed. I'm gonna highlight the critical retail technology of the future. I'm gonna talk a little bit about the future of retail loss prevention, and I'm gonna close my views of what the store of the future looks like. Just to give you a flavor in terms of some of the material

and what you will see, it's extremely graphic with data that's actionable to actually know exactly terms of some of the material and what you will see it's extremely graphic with a with data that's actionable to actually know exactly what is going on around the world but just to get an idea of what's included I actually covered three different forecasts in terms of what's happening to global economies and where do we stand today as of the latest forecast that were just issued in June this year. So for example, around the world, the growth projections are for significant decline in gross domestic product growth. In 2021, the global economy grew over 6%. It will drop to 3%, just over 3% for 2022,

and it will reach close to 3% in 2023. So it will flatten out the advanced economies, which, of course, the United States have won. They saw growth in 2021 of just over 5%. This year it'll drop to 2.5%. And in 23, it will drop to an amazing just 1.4%. For emerging and developing markets, 6.8% was the growth in 2021 for gross domestic product.

was a growth in 2021 for gross domestic product it will drop to 3.6 percent this year and then it will go back to rising just slightly to 3.9 percent in 2023 again that's the latest projection as of June this year in the presentation I will actually highlight some of the countries including specifically what's happening in the United States and also the Euro area. I also speak to the global risks that are taking place around the world and there are many. There are political, military, economic, and environmental risks that actually have been accelerated by things such as the Ukraine war. And I'll explain what those are, including showing a map in terms of who's at most at risk for what will be a very, very difficult winter in Europe because of the Ukraine war, because of the reliance on Russian gas.

So it's important to understand what are the risks, especially the economic risks, because there are multiple still around the world including some in the United States and again I'll cover that in the presentation one of the other risk is that us is still over store we still have too many stores in the United States and I'll provide some data in terms of what is the retail square footage per person. United States leads the world with the highest, Canada second, Australia third. And you'll see the numbers and then drops really heavily after that.

But again, the data is very interesting because I do think that more stores will close. But I don't think we're going to end up really where we were before. I then provide a preview in terms of the retail forecast, what it looked like at the peak of the pandemic, and where we're at now. The good news, and it's semi-good news, is that all the sectors are green, so everybody, every sector is growing. If you do not factor inflation,

if you do factor inflation, again, I will show a chart that basically highlights that some sectors are more threatened by inflation than others in terms of the growth and the impact on growing sales. Also very, very interesting is a chart that I'll show highlighting what's happened to the generations and which generation is the unlucky generation. And by that, I mean the millennials, the Gen X, the boomers, the silent

generation, which generation has done well to date and which generation has continued to struggle and is really the unlucky generation. and that actually was a very pleasant surprise for me to understand that. I'll dig deep into the inflation activities that are going on around the world including what's happening to the UK to the Eurozone in the US and what those trends look like. We'll briefly talk about shrinkflation which is an interesting concept in terms of what's happening in how manufacturers are responding. And then we'll highlight some unusual shrink inflation indexes, including the English breakfast basket inflation index. English breakfast basket inflation index. We'll go through which countries are more dramatically being impacted by inflation versus others and how are supply chains recovering. Have they recovered?

What are some of the challenges that manufacturers are having? How are they responding in some of these challenges? And are we past all those port issues that we had around the world. I do then go deep in terms of what's happening to retail in terms of store opening, store openings and closing, bankruptcies where we're at with retail are we more than or less than last year, what's happening to stores, what's happening to all those great services that emerged during the pandemic, such as buy online, pick up in store.

And finally, I'll summarize a global forecast in terms of what's gonna happen to retail sales out to 2025 overall, and what's happening to e-commerce. Is everything moving online online or are we actually going to still have physical stores and that's a very very interesting story in terms of what the data is telling us in terms of this audience there will be a deep dive in terms of uh the us shrink challenge with some the latest data Rila and others in terms of shrink and how it impacts economic activity and even the government in terms of taxes I

will go through how online marketplaces have become the fencing mechanism and actually show some data on that I will share the highest shrink items I will share the highest shrink items. I will talk to the apprehensions and recoveries in last year in the latest survey in terms of what the average case values are doing for each. I will talk about retail violence in stores and share some data in terms of what's happening there. I will profile the thieves, what they look like that are stealing in retail stores, and what these individuals are telling us when they actually apply for jobs

and get a pre-employment test. So when they apply in retail, we'll talk about that. And then a key question that I've been asking myself recently is, what's happening to inflation and how, and recession, what does that do to crime? Is there some previous data to that? And I could go on and on. I really encourage you to join.

You'll see it on my LinkedIn social media and also other channels in terms of being able to sign up for this. I'll go deep in terms of where some of the critical technology are important to retail, why it's time now for more innovation, speed, what's the future of loss prevention again, and what does the store of the future look like. So it should be a great presentation. I'm looking forward to giving it, and I'm looking forward to your feedback via social media in terms of some of the material. And with that, let me turn it over to Tom. Well, thank you, Tony, and thank you, Reid.

And today I'll be somewhat brief because I am traveling. I know Tony is traveling as well. I wanted to just talk a little bit about news and tech. I wanted to just talk a little bit about news and tech. And if you're reading any of the recent news around tech, big tech is starting to warn of layoffs and restructuring. This is partially because of some of the economic situations, but also there is a reset in a lot of tech companies today and in the past couple of weeks. So Snap CEO officially announced restructuring of the company and will be laying off about 20 percent of its over 6500 employees. In addition to other announcements related to the company's continued growth and what their plan is in the future. And, excuse me, additionally, Twitter has announced not that there'll be layoffs,

but that they're buckling down. And through some of the filings related to Elon Musk, there's information about a potential paid subscription tier that's coming. It doesn't look like that actually is happening. It looks like it was just a potential paid subscription tier that's coming. It doesn't look like that actually is happening. It looks like it was just a bit of potential, but something in the social media space that's constantly changing and constantly moving. I know we keep talking about this here. The reason I do bring this up is because we,

I know we use a lot of these social media platforms to do open source intelligence and active intelligence, gathering lots of movement on the landscape, lots going on today with these companies. And Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was on another podcast, the Joe Rogan podcast, talking pretty freely about some of the challenges of being the CEO of Facebook and some of the things they're doing in the metaverse. So social media continues to be a hot button in the news and continues to evolve really at a rapid pace. So we'll continue to watch the space as, again, we do use it in the FusionNet. And I know that a lot of listeners today use it for active intelligence gathering as well as media gathering. Today, use it for active intelligence gathering as well as media gathering. Switching a little bit, a little bit, but still the social media realm, Microsoft found a flaw in the Android version of TikTok, which allows people to hijack accounts. some of the focus on cybersecurity and protection in cybersecurity space, I think we'll continue to see major, major companies identifying flaws.

This is, there have been patches that have been released around this, and it goes to kind of what we continue to talk about, the importance of patching and updating. Why I thought this was interesting is TikTok has gotten a tremendous amount of press in the past several months from its user base being almost as large as YouTube. It is the fastest growing platform in social media.

It also has one of the most advanced algorithms available out there. And it also comes into controversy quite a bit. And again, using the Joe Rogan example, there have been numerous news articles, but then I actually wrote an article about this as well, about the terms of services and what you're allowing when you use TikTok, allowing them full access to your contacts, allowing them to save device identification, and even whether or not this is used or not, giving permission to save what your activity is on other devices. So I use TikTok. I'm not at all here to tell you not to use the platform. Just understand what you are using it for. And if you have another mobile

device, you may want to put some of those apps on it where it doesn't have open access to some of the things you do. It just continues to be in the forefront of news. So I thought it was a relevant topic to share. Switching a little bit to kind of the war in the Ukraine and Russia, we're continuing to see a lot of activity out of that region for cybersecurity, ransomware attacks, and other cyber incidences. Russia's streaming platform confirmed a data breach. It's called Start. So Start.ru has actually confirmed that 7. half million users were affected by this data breach.

It was something that came up, I believe, started to really hit in September of 2021 is when we heard about it. Then it went away and then came back into play in the end of August that this did in fact happen. Start would probably most closely associated with Netflix. It is a video streaming service, but there is a lot of back and forth about who in fact is responsible for this. for this. There's 44 million users involved within using Start today, and it impacts roughly seven and a half million. That's what we know today. It's a little too soon. I don't want to make any assumptions on who has caused this. The timing of it is loosely associated with some of the activity but not directly but we continue to see just this global increase and it feels like day after day um that we're seeing more and more uh you know

challenges out here uh for cyber instances and i think what we're you know another interesting one is Portugal's flagship airline was affected by ransomware. So it was a cyber attack that was blocked, a cyber incident, and it also ended up being a ransomware lock attack. This is not the first time this has happened. It has happened in the past, back in 2019. And we continue to see these really prolific and huge, large-scale ransomware attacks globally. And I don't see an end in sight. As a matter of fact, I see a pretty stark increase in what we are seeing. The FBI has issued a warning to investors related to cryptocurrency.

There is increasingly the seen x point for a DeFi bug and that's the seal cryptocurrency. As we always talk here, the bad guys or the red actors are constantly looking at ways to take advantage of the good actors. And this is just an example of when people are using cryptocurrency, the largest crypto hack ever, to a North Korean threat group. I think they're continuing to see different levels of attacks. Again, I don't want to speculate on where they're coming from at this point, but there is a heightened awareness around this. So if you are listening to this and you are into cryptocurrency, my advice would be to, depending on the platform you use, take all available measures you can to protect yourself. And then the best route is to take a cold storage route, which means you actually take your key and you start offline in a physical device. What does that mean today? If you're using a broker or a brokerage house that has that key in it and while they are safe, inherently safe, there is an opportunity for someone to get into them.

When you have a cold storage option, the risk is that you could lose the key the physical device but it does keep that safe with you and there are a whole host of different options out there so if you're big into cryptocurrency you're not doing that you may want to take a look at that if you are using an online brokerage ensure that you have multi-factor authentication. And even in some cases, you'll have dual multi-factor, meaning that you'd have to use an app-based authenticator and a live authentication option. That may be the way to go. Again, not recommending or saying that you shouldn't use these things. It's just kind of one of those things where I would say, take every necessary action that you can to protect yourself.

And then I think, excuse me, I think one of the other things that was an interesting, and I'm going to end with this, was there was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal on text messaging, and text messaging is really becoming the new email, and how the use of text messaging is increasing. I thought the article was really interesting, and when we talked in the past, In the past, there have been different kind of iterations due to COVID where people became more connected in COVID, more video chat, more connected meetings because of the fact that we weren't able to have those human messages. I think human meetings. I think this is just a stark reminder of that. We are in this still in an evolution. You're starting to see email out of the office type messages on text messaging,

and we're starting to see text messages becoming much, much more business accepted. I think what I mean by that is you will see a much more heightened approach to having people reach out to you and to have general conversation. I think today, if you're using an Android or an iPhone, you will probably see that there are features to filter out unknown senders versus senders. It's not uncommon for your drug store, your bank,

and all of those folks to text message you both for security purposes and for actual just notification purposes and as this is occurring text message apps or enhancing my advice to you is if you don't have filtering a turned on take a look and if you do have filtering turned on they don't know what I'm referring to make sure that you understand it because there is a chance that you'll lose messaging depending messages depending how you have it set up as someone that's had the same phone number since the mid 90s it isn't uncommon for me daily to get a text message from someone i don't recognize the phone number and that's usually because there's a contact change or something goes along those lines and it goes into a filtered box of unknown

sender and both Apple and Android have really great tools to help try to make it easier to identify who folks are based on searching your email for that phone number and other activities so So text messaging is becoming the new email and probably here to stay, short snippet messages. I always am interested in what's next. I think we're continuing to see spam. And as we address some of those spam issues with technology in text messaging, I think we'll continue to see apps alike to help with that. And with that, I will turn it back over to Reid. All right. Well, thanks so much, Tony and Tom and Diego. Thanks so much for everything. What a great summary. And again,

let's just finish up with letting everybody know if you've got any questions or comments about the podcast and ways for us to improve it or some content you recommend, let us know at lpresearch.org or operations at lpresearch.org. So everybody stay safe, stay connected. Thanks so much. Thanks for listening to the Crime Science Podcast presented by the Loss Prevention Research Council. If you enjoyed today's episode, you can find more crime science episodes and valuable information at lpresearch.org. The content provided in the Crime Science Podcast is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for legal, financial, or other advice. Views expressed by guests of the Crime Science Podcast are those of the authors and do not reflect the opinions or positions of the Loss Prevention Research Council.