Russia-Based Hackers Attempted To Hack Clinton Email Server

Juliegrace Brufke Capitol Hill Reporter
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Russia-based hackers attempted to hack into Hillary Clinton’s private email server on at least five occasions while she was serving as secretary of state, according State Department emails released Wednesday.

The former first lady received multiple phishing emails disguised as speeding tickets in August 2011, it hasn’t been confirmed whether she clicked on the attachments, though the phishing attempts were not sophisticated.

Recipients were instructed to print the doctored traffic citation, sent from from a fake government account,  allowing cyberspies to gain full computer access.

“We have no evidence to suggest she replied to this email or that she opened the attachment,” Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Clinton’s Democratic presidential campaign told the Associated Press. “As we have said before, there is no evidence that the system was ever breached. All these emails show is that, like millions of other Americans, she received spam.”

A private sector IT security expert told Fox News the hacking attempt was likely aimed at the State Department using a “blast approach.”

Most anti-malware software would have flagged the virus on Windows systems at the time of the attempt, but it is unclear whether Clinton’s private server would have detected the threat. The typo-ridden email, which misspelled Chatham, New York, was also a giveaway the email was a scam.

Clinton has said she didn’t send any classified information over the server, a claim that has been disproved as the number emails deemed confidential has been upped to 155 after the last release.

The FBI is currently using its “A-team” to conduct an investigation into former New York senator’s private server to see whether she violated the Espionage Act, compromising national security.

Cyberespionage has been a growing problem in the United States. The Office of Personnel Management’s system was breached in December, exposing millions of federal employees and contractors’ personal information to hackers.

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