Latest news with #online threats
Washington Post
29-05-2025
- Politics
- Washington Post
Colorado man who threatened election officials asks for leniency in sentencing
DENVER — Teak Ty Brockbank posted online that Colorado's top election official should be executed and her former counterpart in Arizona should also be killed. But Brockbank, who faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced Thursday for making online threats, is asking for leniency. He says he made those posts when he was drinking heavily and socially isolated, spending his evenings consuming conspiracy theories online.
Associated Press
29-05-2025
- General
- Associated Press
Colorado man who threatened election officials asks for leniency in sentencing
DENVER (AP) — Teak Ty Brockbank posted online that Colorado's top election official should be executed and her former counterpart in Arizona should also be killed. But Brockbank, who faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced Thursday for making online threats, is asking for leniency. He says he made those posts when he was drinking heavily and socially isolated, spending his evenings consuming conspiracy theories online. Brockbank pleaded guilty in October to one count of transmitting interstate threats between September 2021 and August 2022 against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and former Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, now the state's governor, as well as against a Colorado state judge and federal law enforcement agents. Under a plea deal, prosecutors agreed not to pursue charges against him for having firearms he was barred from possessing because of a previous conviction or for online threats he made later. One such threat was against Griswold last year for her role in helping the prosecution of former Colorado clerk, Tina Peters. They also say he threatened judges on the Colorado Supreme Court after they removed Donald Trump from the state's ballot. The U.S. Supreme Court later restored Trump's name to the ballot. Brockbank, who was has been behind bars since he was arrested in August 2024, is asking to be sentenced to the time he has already served plus three years of supervised release and possibly six months in home detention or in a halfway house. That's less than is recommended by federal sentencing guidelines but Brockbank's lawyer, Tom Ward, said that sentence would allow him to get unspecified treatment. In a court filing in support of the request, Ward said Brockbank was a 'keyboard warrior' with no intent of carrying out his threats. Brockbank spent time on social media sites like Gab and Rumble, the alternative video-sharing platform that has been criticized for allowing and sometimes promoting far-right extremism. Ward said Rumble and Gab repeatedly delivered 'the message that the country was under attack and that patriotic Americans had a duty to rise up and act,' he said. 'His engagement with extremist content online was driven not by a malicious character, but by a misplaced desire for belonging and a tendency to not question others' underlying motives,' Ward wrote. The filing did not specify which ideas Brockbank was drawn to but it noted that Michael Flynn and Roger Stone were prominent on Rumble. Prosecutors want U.S. District Judge S. Kato Crews to sentence Brockbank to three years in prison, in part to deter others from threatening election officials. 'Threats to elections workers across the country are an ongoing and very serious problem,' wrote Jonathan Jacobsen, a Washington-based trial attorney for the Justice Department's public integrity section. Under the Biden administration, the department launched a task force in 2021 to combat the rise of threats targeting election officials. Brockbank's conviction in the fall was one of over a dozen convictions won by the unit. At the time, the longest sentences handed down was 3.5 years in prison in two separate cases involving election officials in Arizona. In one case, a man who advocated for 'a mass shooting of poll workers,' posted threatening statements in November 2022 about two Maricopa County officials and their children, prosecutors said. In the other, a Massachusetts man pleaded guilty to sending a bomb threat in February 2021 to an election official in the Arizona Secretary of State's office.
RNZ News
13-05-2025
- Business
- RNZ News
Hundreds of millions of dollars lost to online security threats
Half of respondents to the new survey experienced an online threat in the last six months of 2024. File photo. Photo: New Zealanders could have lost an estimated $1.6 billion to online security threats in 2024, according to extrapolations from an annual survey released by the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC). Online security threats cover a wide range of attacks, including online identity theft, data breaches, phishing scams, investment scams, romance scams and shopping scams. The survey, carried out by consultancy firm The Research Agency (TRA), was completed by 1006 New Zealanders aged 18 years and over at the end of 2024. A report published on the survey results looked at people's cyber security awareness, their barriers to change, behaviours, and information sources. The survey found that 54 percent of respondents have experienced an online threat in the last six months of 2024. It also extrapolated based on the survey results that an estimated 830,000 New Zealanders would have experienced some financial loss, averaging $1260 per cyber attack. "If these numbers are extrapolated across the adult population, it indicates that around $1.6 billion was lost last year," said NCSC director of mission enablement Mike Jagusch. NCSC believed that the numbers shown through the survey were much higher than what was reported to NCSC. "We know cyber security attacks are underreported. We also know that direct financial loss is only one of the many effects of cyber attacks. These incidents also lead to loss of time, loss of personal information and impacts mental wellbeing," said Jagusch. The survey found that people had the highest awareness of scam calls, online identity theft, phishing scams and online shopping scams. Whereas awareness of unauthorised bank transfers, job offer scams and gift card scams, were relatively low. People over 55 were found to be more likely to experience online security threats through phone calls, while 18-34 year olds experience more threats on social media. Meanwhile, more than half of those surveyed took steps to protect themselves from online security threats. Methods include two-factor authentication on main accounts, changing default passwords on devices like Wi-Fi routers, and using a password manager. However, 44 percent those surveyed who experienced cyber attacks didn't report the incidents, and males were found to be less likely to report cyber threats. Apathy was found to be a common barrier among those who chose not to report. Jagusch urged New Zealanders to continue to report any cyber threats they encounter. "It's easy to think nothing happens when you report. "Your reports help us to better understand the threats we face and helps us to shape our response. It also helps other New Zealanders keep safe from similar attacks and keep them from losing money," he said. Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
