Revealed: Hillary Clinton’s private email servers were wide open to hacking from China, Korea and Germany

(Cyberwar.news) A private email server used by Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton while she served as President Obama’s Secretary of State were indeed wide open for cyber attacks and hacking by a number of countries including China, South Korea and Germany, a new report notes.

As reported by the Associated Press, the server stored as many as 55,000 pages of emails during her tenure as head of the State Department and was at the center of attempted hack attacks that originated from the three countries after she left office in early 2013 to prepare for her presidential run, according to a congressional document.

A letter from Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, noted that while many attempts were blocked by a “threat monitoring” product her staff connected to her network in October 2013, there was a period of three months prior to that time when protection had not been installed. That means her server was vulnerable to cyber attacks during that period.

Johnson’s letter, addressed to Victor Nappe, CEO of SECNAP – the firm that provided the threat monitoring product – “seeks a host of documents relating to the company’s work on Clinton’s server and the nature of the cyber intrusions detected,” the AP reported. Johnson’s committee is currently investigating Clinton’s email server setup.

For her part, the Democratic front-runner has not said publicly what firewalls or other protections, if any, she had installed to protect her email server prior to June 2013 – including the period between 2009 and 2013 when she was Secretary of State and kept a private email server in her home in the suburbs of New York City.

The AP further noted:

A February 2014 email from SECNAP reported that malicious software based in China “was found running an attack against” Clinton’s server. In total, Senate investigators have found records describing three such attempts linked to China, one based in Germany and one originating in South Korea. The attacks occurred in 2013 and 2014. The letter describes four attacks, but investigators have since found records about a fifth attempt, said officials who were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

Any country accessing Clinton’s server in 2013 or 2014 may have stolen reams of sensitive email traffic involving U.S. foreign relations. To that end, thousands of Clinton emails that have been public thus far under Freedom of Information Act rules have had to be heavily redacted for national security and other reasons, the AP reported.

In setting up her own private server, Clinton “essentially circumvented millions of dollars’ worth of cybersecurity investment that the federal government puts within the State Department,” Justin Harvey, chief security officer of Fidelis Cybersecurity, told the newswire.

“She wouldn’t have had the infrastructure to detect or respond to cyber attacks from a nation-state,” he said. “Those attacks are incredibly sophisticated, and very hard to detect and contain. And if you have a private server, it’s very likely that you would be compromised.”

Meanwhile, as reported by The Washington Post, a tech firm that worked on Clinton’s email setup expressed concerns over the summer that her system was not very well protected and, thus, vulnerable to hacking, according to a company official who spoke to the paper.

Despite those concerns, however, the company managing Clinton’s account, Platte River Networks, ignored them, adding that it had been instructed by the FBI to not make any changes.

The FBI is currently looking into the security of her email system as well as other aspects of her handling of classified emails.

“The subcontractor, Datto, which specializes in backing up data, had not been aware that it was handling Clinton e-mails until media reports in August noted Platte River Networks’ involvement with the controversy surrounding the former Secretary of State’s e-mails,” the Post reported.

Company officials became worried about the “sensitive high profile nature of the data” recommended upgrading security by adding sophisticated encryption technology to backup systems.

Federal officials, as well as Republicans in Congress, are examining whether Clinton endangered national security by using a private system devoid of typical top-level security protocols that are expected of high-level government officials.

If found to have violated laws and procedures aimed at protecting top secret materials, Clinton could face federal charges – but that will ultimately be up to President Obama.

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See also:

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WashingtonPost.com