Reposted from Art Sentry

The 2024 outlook leaves little doubt that for many museums, it’s not a matter of whether protest activity will occur at their site but when. Here are some things to consider in preparing your museum to address these kinds of incidents safely:

• Train security not to allow protesters to publicize activities. Clear galleries to limit what is being filmed/posted so that real or perceived danger to the museum’s collection cannot become a hook to generate publicity.
  
  
• Press charges when necessary, so that future protest/activist groups understand the consequences of behaving unsafely or causing harm. 
  
  
• Coordinate your response plan with local police and other cultural properties in your area. Coordinate internally with staff responsible for security, visitor services, accessibility, collections care, and communications. A unified approach is the safest and strongest. 
  
  
• Do not attempt to arrest or physically remove protesters. Wait for the police. 

When museums are caught up in the currents of civil unrest, awareness and proper preparation can minimize any negative impacts without hindering their mission of engaging with their community. 

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Reposted from Tim Richardson

Four years ago this week, our world crumbled. The threat of COVID-19 changed everything. Entire industries, including travel and conferences suffered tremendous setbacks. The weeks and months after the pandemic were difficult for everyone. My business of speaking to businesses and organizations grinded to a temporary halt. Helping organizations perform better is what brings me purpose and joy. I have helped thousands of employees and hundreds of organizations improve their performance. But during the pandemic, I couldn’t do that. So I slipped into a dark place. I didn’t use my time well. I was the host of a few pity parties thrown just for me. I had serious reservations about my speaking future. For a brief moment, I even wondered what I might do if the speaking profession never rebounded. One day I was scanning my professional speaking association’s Facebook page and saw a post by a speaker I did not know. He wanted to host a weekly Zoom call for speakers to help each other navigate the challenging times we faced. The purpose was to hold each other accountable for making calls and to support and encourage each other. Needing some inspiration and accountability, I joined. Every Monday, six of us met online to talk about what we had accomplished the week before. We discussed new business ideas, we shared what books we were reading, and we challenged each other to continue moving forward. More than three years later we continue to meet via Zoom to encourage and sharpen each other. We have all grown by providing honest feedback and helpful advice. We look forward to our regular times together and continue to build upon the foundations which brought us together. While mastermind groups are a powerful way to grow your business, there are many types of groups that meet to hold each other accountable or learn together.

For the last five years, my wife has been meeting with a group of women to encourage each other and to help each other with spiritual growth and development. She gets great value out of their meetings and likes having the support of close friends. Katherine Johnson, a NASA mathematician and the inspiration for the movie “The Hidden Figures” regularly met with other black woman who made major contributions to the United States space program. Henry Ford, Harvey Firestone, Thomas Edison, Dr. Alexis Carrel, Charles Lindbergh, and a young man named Jim Newton met over many years to support each other in their business and career endeavors. Lincoln had his team of rivals consisting of cabinet members with vastly different political views – even foes – who challenged and advised him during our nation’s most troubling times. Jesus had 12 disciplines whom he met with and traveled with to spread Christianity to the world.
Nearly every successful businessperson or professional speaker that I know surrounds themselves with others to help them be better at what they do. I am grateful today, on National Professional Speakers Day, to share my gratitude and appreciation for the many speakers I have shared with and learned from over a long career. The accountability and support I had received through meeting with other business professionals and professional speakers has been life and career changing. Don’t miss out on the power of participating in an accountability or study group to help you grow as well.

Reposted from EMR-ISAC

As machine learning models are “moving AI into its industrial age,” there will be “potentially huge economic impacts for both winners and followers and unintended consequences, from rampant deepfakes and misinformation to the development of AI-generated computer viruses or new chemical weapons,” the U.S. intelligence community warned in its annual threat assessment published Monday.

The annual report notes that China “remains the most persistent cyber threat to U.S. Government, private sector, and critical infrastructure networks” and that Beijing has carried out a years-long effort to infiltrate key critical infrastructure networks around the United States. American spies assess that activity, which is widely tracked as Volt Typhoon, aims to give China the ability to disrupt communications between the United States and China in the event of a military conflict.

Iran may attempt to interfere as well, perhaps building on a 2020 operation that saw an Iran-linked group access voter data and target some voters with phony emails purporting to be from the right-wing group known as the Proud Boys. The group behind that operation has “evolved their activities and developed a new set of techniques, combining cyber and influence capabilities,” that it could use in 2024, according to the report.

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Reposted from EME-ISAC

A Jan. 21 ransomware attack on a Bucks County, Pennsylvania, computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system caused the temporary loss of automated services that were powered by the CAD system. Some critical functions typically provided by CAD systems include prioritizing and recording calls and locating and dispatching responders in the field. More recently, a Feb. 22 AT&T outage impacted FirstNet, the nationwide broadband network dedicated to first responders and public safety. The outage prompted the FirstNet Authority to form an After-Action Task Force to strengthen FirstNet’s preparedness for future outages. These two recent incidents are reminders of how important it is for emergency services agencies to have backup systems and processes in place in the event of a communications system outage, whether due to a cyberattack or other non-intentional cause. Earlier this month, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released two resources for emergency services agencies’ communications and cyber resiliency: 

(1) CISA updated its Public Safety Communications and Cyber Resiliency Toolkit with six new guidance documents that will help public safety agencies establish resiliency measures for their communications systems. One foundational guidance document in this Toolkit that is particularly relevant in light of recent incidents is Leveraging the Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency (PACE) Plan in an Emergency Communications Ecosystem, by the National Council of Statewide Interoperability Coordinators (NCSWIC). PACE planning follows a simple and practical framework to help an organization prepare for backup communications capabilities in a wide variety of out-of-the-ordinary situations.

(2) CISA, SAFECOM and NCSWIC just launched a new 911 Cybersecurity Resource Hub. This one-stop shop compiles cybersecurity resources to make it easy for emergency communications centers (ECCs) to report a cyber incident, find real-world case studies, access cybersecurity education and training opportunities, and learn about best practices to identify and protect networks from cyberattacks. CISA, SAFECOM, and NCSWIC worked collaboratively with state and local public safety and emergency communications stakeholders to develop this interactive website.

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Reposted from EMR-ISAC

More than 2 in 5 ransomware attacks reported to the FBI in 2023 targeted organizations in a critical infrastructure sector, the agency said Thursday in its annual Internet Crime Report. Of the 2,825 ransomware attacks reported to the FBI last year, 1,193 hit critical infrastructure organizations. The proportion of ransomware attacks hitting critical infrastructure grew from one-third of attacks reported to the FBI in 2022. Losses reported from ransomware attacks jumped 74% to almost $60 million last year. Ransomware attacks were also up 18% from the previous year.

Reposted from EMR-ISAC

The University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (IFAS) and the Southern Fire Exchange (SFE) will host a webinar on Thursday, March 28, 2024, from 1-2 p.m. EDT, Increasing Large Wildfires in the Eastern United States.

This webinar provides an overview of changing large wildfire regimes in the eastern U.S., highlighting increasing wildfire number, size, and total area burned within regions of the southeast. In addition, the presentation will discuss how changing wildfire dynamics impact public wildfire risk in the wildland-urban interface. This presentation will summarize the findings from a recent publication, Increasing Large Wildfire in the Eastern United States.

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Reposted from EMR-ISAC

For decades, firefighters have been using aqueous film forming foams (AFFF) for the vapor suppression and extinguishment of flammable liquid fires.

All AFFFs make use of chemicals containing per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, commonly referred to as PFAS. PFAS are a class of compounds with man-made carbon-fluorine bonds. These compounds improve the fire suppression capabilities of firefighting foams. However, PFAS are harmful to human health and the environment. Legislators in the United States and internationally are phasing out the use of PFAS-containing foams in military, aviation, industrial, and municipal firefighting arenas. In making the transition away from AFFFs, the fire service has several areas of concern:

• The health, safety, and environmental impacts of the PFAS in legacy AFFFs and how to limit exposure to these harmful chemicals.
• The rapidly changing regulatory landscape. Evolving regulations impact the use of firefighting foams containing PFAS and the way the foam is contained, recycled, or destroyed after use.
• Foam industry changes and the selection of AFFF alternatives. Many transitional and PFAS-free foam alternatives are being developed and tested. Standards are being developed to allow industry to benchmark and certify these new foam products in a reliable way. However, fire suppression capabilities still vary widely among these new foams, and they may come with their own safety risks.
• Changes to tactics and training. The fire service needs up-to-date information on how well new foams perform and what changes in tactics are required to use them effectively. This will impact how firefighters are trained to fight future flammable liquid fires.
• Changes to equipment. Existing equipment used with legacy foam should be cleaned until no longer contaminated with PFAS. Cleaning methods should incorporate ways to contain and dispose of the effluent used for cleaning, since the effluent will be contaminated with PFAS. Additionally, new foams may require different hardware so that the new foam solutions can be dispersed effectively.

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Reposted from Artnet News

The Worcester Art Museum is on the verge of recovering a painting nearly 45 years after a brazen art heist—and it’s all thanks to an $18 throw pillow. The robbery took place way back in 1978, at the Worcester home of Helen and Robert Stoddard. He was a former museum trustee who had promised to donate much of his art collection to the institution. Under cover of night, burglars made off with 12 pieces currently estimated to be worth $10 million, including a Pierre-Auguste Renoir canvas and a J.M.W. Turner watercolor. One of those works, Hendrick Avercamp’s Winter Landscape with Skater and Other Figures could soon be on its way back to Massachusetts, courtesy of some impressive online sleuthing by Clifford Schorer, the Worcester Art Museum’s former board president, reports Boston magazine. “The recovery of this painting would be a great boon to the Worcester Art Museum. Hendrick Avercamp is one of the most celebrated artists of the 17th-century Netherlands and the inviting details in his winter scenes are a source of delight for many visitors,” Claire C. Whitner, the museum’s director of curatorial affairs and curator of European art told Artnet News in an email. “I also see the recovery of this painting as having the potential to offer a bit of closure to a very distressing event in the Stoddard family’s past.”
A simple reverse image search of the 17th-century Dutch master’s winter scene by Schorer turned up a throw pillow featuring a print of the canvas—but in much higher fidelity than any known photographs taken of the work prior to the theft. And it wasn’t just the pillow. At Pixels.com, which sells merchandise on demand, you could put the painting, listed as the work of Barent Avercamp—Hendrick’s nephew and student—on an iPhone case, a canvas tote bag, a puzzle, and even a face mask, among other products. Schorer is an art collector and investor—in 2014, he swooped in to help keep Agnews, the venerable London Old Masters dealer, in business. He’s proven to have an eagle eye before, successfully identifying a drawing purchased at a Massachusetts estate sale for just $30 as an original Albrecht Dürer—a true rarity. (Agnews showed the work in January at Master Drawings New York.) So when he found the Avercamp throw pillow, Schorer trusted his instincts. He downloaded the image of the painting and found a clue embedded in the metadata. There was the name of an art library, as well as a New York art dealer. He called the dealer, who remembered the painting from a 1995 art fair, but said that a now-defunct gallery had conducted the sale.
After four months of research, Schorer tracked down the niece of that dealer, who in turn dug through the old company records to identify the buyers. Schorer estimates it cost less than $200,000—a bargain considering that Avercamp’s auction record is $8.6 million, according to the Artnet Price Database. Somewhere along the way, it appears someone had altered the painting’s signature to read “B. Avercamp” instead of “H. Avercamp,” making it easier to move the stolen work on the open market. Barent’s top price at auction is just £378,000 ($460,919).
The owners, a Dutch couple, had since died, so Schorer sent a letter to their heirs on behalf of the museum in 2021, looking to make arrangements for the work’s return. They never responded. This month, Schorer had a Dutch lawyer reach out, with a warning that after 40 days, the museum would instigate a criminal case in the Netherlands. He’s hopeful that the painting’s recovery is now close at hand. Only three of the Stoddards’ works have been found to date. The most significant was Camille Pissarro’s Bassins Duquesne et Berrigny a Dieppe, Temps Gris, which turned up at Wolfs auction house in Cleveland in 1998, not long before Helen Stoddard’s death. There was a complicated legal dispute, but Helen prevailed, and the painting entered the museum collection to much fanfare.

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Reposted from Museum Association

Body-worn cameras are being trialed at several English Heritage sites to deter anti-social behavior, as a new report finds that heritage crime is on the rise. The cameras, which are visible to visitors, are being worn by staff at four locations: Wrest Park in Bedfordshire, Tilbury Fort in Essex, Kenwood House in north London and Marble Hill in south London. The cameras are intended to support de-escalation of conflict or confrontation, the prevention or detection of crime and disorder, and resolution of disputes such as complaints against staff. The heritage body said on its website that footage was being recorded "on the basis of our legitimate interest in deterring and detecting crime". "Experience of these cameras has shown that they are useful at helping defuse confrontational situations and provide a reliable version of events, which can help us to clarify any dispute or serve as evidence in the event it is believed a crime has been committed," the organization added. It comes as new research reveals the scale and extent of heritage and cultural property crime in England. The research was commissioned by Historic England and National Police Chiefs' Council, both members of the Alliance to Reduce Crime Against Heritage (Arch). Funded by Historic England, the Heritage and Cultural Property Crime research was carried out by crime analysts at Opal (the National Crime Intelligence Unit for Serious Organized Acquisitive Crime) between February 2020 and February 2023. The report outlines a range of active and emerging threats to the historic environment, including the theft of historic lead and stone, high value burglaries targeting cultural objects, unlawful metal detecting (also known as nighthawking) and the removal of artefacts from protected wreck sites. It highlights the problem of antisocial behavior, particularly arson, vandalism and graffiti, which has led to recommendations for "more effective prevention and active enforcement of heritage crime". The research found that, spurred on by the cost-of-living crisis, the theft of historic stone is on the rise, as is the theft of high-value cultural objects from museums, art galleries and stately homes. "The theft of valuable heritage materials and cultural objects by opportunist offenders and organized crime groups is likely to increase as inflation continues to impact the price of commodities," said the report. However, following successful preventative measures, there has been a decrease in metal thefts and unlawful metal detecting. The research found that arson, vandalism and graffiti "continue to pose a significant threat" to England’s nationally important historic buildings and archaeological sites. However, initiatives such as the Heritage Watch program and the work of the National Fire Chiefs’ Council and the National Rural Crime Network are having an impact, the report said. Cyber-enabled crime was identified as another growing threat. "It is likely that stolen items will continue to be sold online where offenders can (often anonymously) make a profit. It is also likely that a higher number of fakes will enter the market as scams and fraudulent activity online rises," said the report. "We are committed to tackling this issue and our heritage crime officers across the country will continue to work with Historic England and other partners, to reduce offending and educate the wider public about the long-lasting damage heritage crime can have," said Duncan Wilson, chief executive of Historic England. "This assessment reminds us that cultural heritage transcends time and generations," said Vernon Rapley, head of security at the V&A. "In the face of the many risks highlighted in this report, we must act quickly and decisively to safeguard our museums, galleries, and heritage sites for the enjoyment and education of future generations." The Arch partnership is calling for enhanced crime recording standards and the development of a heritage crime ‘marker’ on police call handling and crime management systems.

"Currently, no standardized methodology exists across all police forces, and heritage crime is not considered a priority. This limits our understanding of the true scale and extent of heritage crime in the historic environment and how to deal with it," said the report.

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