Had she followed the instructions, information from her computer-this is the Secretary of State we’re talking about, not a few other Hillary Clinton-would have been transmitted to multiple overseas computers.
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But, as the AP notes, that doesn’t necessarily mean Russian intelligence or citizens were responsible.
Clinton has said repeatedly that the unusual homebrew server she used was secure.
On Wednesday, The Associated Press reported that Clinton also received a number of phishing attempts disguised as parking tickets. The email misspelled the name of the city, came from a supposed New York City government account and contained a “Ticket.zip” file that would have been a red flag.
Most commercial antivirus software at the time would have detected the software, identified it as risky and prevented users from infecting themselves. The messages, all titled “Uniform Traffic Ticket, “appeared to be from the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles and prompted the recipient to print out an “enclosed ticket” for a speeding offense”.
After Google Inc (GOOGL.O) revealed in June 2011 that suspected Chinese hackers tried to steal the passwords of lots of of Gmail accounts held by senior US authorities officers, Clinton and three prime aides mentioned the difficulty.
They also feature back and forth exchanges between State Department officials about coverage of the worsening security situation in Libya and emails from longtime Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal on politics, foreign affairs, and suggested readings. If Biden stays out, Clinton would campaign from a stronger position and could further make the case that she is the most electable Democrat against Sanders, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and others.
It’s impossible to tell from the emails whether Clinton opened the attachments. It is unclear if she clicked on any attachment and exposed her account.
On June 3, 2011, Anne-Marie Slaughter, who was no longer in her job as director of policy planning at the State Department, wrote to Clinton after a Gmail hack, “State’s technology is so antiquated that NO ONE uses a State-issued laptop and even high officials routinely end up using their home email accounts to be able to get their work done quickly and effectively”. Nearly all were “confidential”, the lowest level of classification.
In late 2014 she turned over 55,000 printed pages of work-related emails to the State Department with the purposes of archiving and making them public.
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“The information we upgraded today was not marked classified at the time the emails were sent“, Kirby stressed.
