The FBI has been focusing its investigation on the private email server that Clinton had installed at her home in New Jersey during her tenure as Secretary of State. Datto says it offers two kinds of backup storage: a private cloud virtual server that takes data from a server and converts it into “virtual machines that can be booted instantly”, and an off-site “secure cloud”. Secnap declined to comment to the AP.
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The letter cites a few colorful internal emails from Platte River that were sent in August as the company’s role in the controversy gained widespread attention.
There were conflicting accounts as to whether the development could lead to recovery of any of Clinton’s more than 31,000 personal emails, which she said she deleted from her private server upon turning over her work-related emails to the State Department, at its request, in December 2014.
The report comes amid ongoing scrutiny over the security of Clinton’s server and the scope through which classified documents were shared over it.
Platte River Networks was “explicitly asked by our client to keep all data onsite”, Andy Boian, a spokesman for the company, told the Washington Examiner. Critics of Clinton’s decision to eschew a State Department email account have pointed out that if hackers were able to access her server, they would have been able to obtain thousands of sensitive emails relating to US diplomatic relations and other matters that could potentially pose a threat to USA national security.
Sen. Ron Johnson, chairman of the committee, first brought the existence of the Datto cloud to light in a letter to its CEO Monday. Ron Johnson, also asked the firm to turn over to the committee copies of any Clinton emails still in its possession.
Justin Harvey, chief security officer of Fidelis Cybersecurity, said Clinton “wouldn’t have had the infrastructure to detect or respond to cyber attacks from a nation-state”.
A federal judge said he will order the State Department to send a specific request asking former Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton to make sure she has turned over all of her official records, but said Wednesday he doubts he has the power to demand she actually preserve the documents. Clinton has said that confidential data was never put at risk.
When Datto acknowledged that was the case, a Platte River employee replied in an email: “This is a problem”. Clinton has said she broke no laws or rules by using a private server.
Of particular interest to Johnson, according to his letter, is whether Datto was authorized to store classified information and whether the firm has come under cyberattack.
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The practice was made public in March by the House Select Committee on Benghazi, which is investigating the 2012 terrorist attacks in Libya, and Clinton is scheduled to testify before the committee later this month.
