Forensics , Governance & Risk Management , Information Sharing

Forensics Experts Weigh in on Clinton Investigation

Now that federal authorities have custody of Hillary Clinton's private email server, how might they forensically examine it?

Clinton, who's campaigning to seek the Democratic Party nomination for president, was under pressure to surrender her email server to federal authorities (see Clinton's Email Brouhaha and Politics). She used the private server instead of an email account provided by the State Department while secretary of state. She's been criticized for putting government secrets at risk by using this private email server. Clinton contends that she never received or sent email messages labeled top secret, but the inspector general for the intelligence community says two of 40 messages he reviewed contained "top secret" information, although they were not marked as classified.

An attorney for Clinton says she has turned over the email server, along with a thumb drive containing email messages, to be examined by federal authorities to determine whether the privately-controlled server placed government secrets at risk (see Was Clinton Server Exposed to Hacks?).

The U.S. Justice Department and FBI haven't shared how their forensics investigators will examine the email server. But to get an idea how federal authorities might approach such an investigation, Information Security Media Group spoke with four forensics examination and cybersecurity experts, with their observations presented in an audio report that you can access by clicking on the player beneath Clinton's picture.

The experts are: