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Facebook, Wal-Mart and other companies planning to use facial-recognition scans for security or tailored sales pitches are working to build the rules for how images and online profiles can be used, according to Newsday. The U.S. Department of Commerce will start meeting with industry and privacy advocates in February to draft a voluntary code of conduct for using facial recognition products, and the draft will be ready by June.

The retail industry will lose an estimated $8.76 billion to return fraud this year, and $3.39 billion during the holiday season alone. Overall, 5.8 percent of holiday returns are fraudulent, up slightly from 4.6 percent last night.

Cyber threats are the “new normal” for the financial services industry, according to Booz Allen in its annual list of the “Top Financial Services Cyber Security Trends for 2014.”

Mobile shopping is expected to increase dramatically this holiday season – mobile commerce spending on smartphones and tablets in the U.S. increased $5.8 billion in Q3, however, during the same period, mobile malware threats increased 26 percent, making consumers more than more vulnerable to mobile cyber attacks.

As interesting as Big Data can be for finding patterns in the past, its biggest promise for security lies in being able to predict the future.

Store security at Barneys New York is now trained on the NYPD.

New York financial regulators have surveyed more than 200 banks and other financial institutions about their cyber security and will soon expand their analysis to insurers with trillions of dollars of assets, according to an Associated Press report.

Shrink, comprised of shoplifting, employee or supplier fraud, organized retail crime and administrative errors, cost the retail industry more than $112 billion globally last year, according to the 2012-2013 Global Retail Theft Barometer, and represented 1.4 percent of retail sales, on average.

The holiday shopping season is fast approaching, and it’s prime time for cyber attackers who hope to catch enterprises at their weakest moments.

According to a new survey of 1,100 retail companies conducted by the Ponemon Institute and sponsored by RSA, daily revenue surges by an average of 55 percent during the holiday season. However, if a retail site is hacked or disabled, average losses could amount to as much as $500,000 per hour, or $8,000 per minute, according to a Dark Reading report.