On February 5th this year, thousands of fans will be flocking to the XLVI Super Bowl at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis where the Giants will face the Patriots. What many fans don’t know, and may not even notice during the festivities, is that more than 80 security cameras will be present throughout downtown Indianapolis for the event, as well as four helicopters, numerous police officers with hand-held video devices, a special truck designed to scan for explosive, biological or radioactive threats and more than 100 undercover city and state police officers.

If you tried to access Wikipedia yesterday, or many other websites, you may have come across a “dark” website that was participating in the widespread internet blackout - a protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a bill that is being put to vote in Congress.

The bill is designed to stop piracy by giving Congress the ability to deny access to previously out-of-reach, foreign websites. The Justice Department would have the decisive power to keep pirate sites from receiving U.S. visitors and funding. This would be done by blocking access to the website to users or by requiring search engines, like Google, to disable the links to the site.

In the past few months we have discussed the topic of credit card skimming quite frequently. Last month we got Up Close & Personal with Organized Skimming Attacks, in November we listed the 5 Best Practices for Banks & Credit Unions to Halt Skimming, and in September we covered how the FBI is now getting involved in the FBI Tackles ATM Skimming & Cybercrimes.

The 2011 Global Theft Barometer predicted there would be a rise in shoplifting during the four weeks prior to Christmas, up 6% from 2010 and estimating a $1.84 billion in merchandise losses. The majority of merchandise loss is from theft; a store’s customers steal 36% and employees contribute to a surprising 44% of the stolen goods.

The growth of theft around the holiday season has a lot to do with the increase in customer traffic which makes it difficult for employees to keep track of who and what is coming and going. Another factor is that winter coats, bulky sweaters and customers carrying extra shopping bags create additional opportunities to hide stolen items.

What are some changes that can be made to reduce shrinkage in 2012?