From the Tuesday edition of the Morning Jolt…
New Documents Confirm Hillary’s Server Was Vulnerable to Hackers
A big portion of the debate tonight has to discuss this, right? It can’t just be five Democrats all agreeing that Republicans are the source of all evil, right?
The private email server running in Hillary Rodham Clinton’s home basement when she was secretary of state was connected to the Internet in ways that made it more vulnerable to hackers, according to data and documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Clinton’s server, which handled her personal and State Department correspondence, appeared to allow users to connect openly over the Internet to control it remotely, according to detailed records compiled in 2012. Experts said the Microsoft remote desktop service wasn’t intended for such use without additional protective measures, and was the subject of U.S. government and industry warnings at the time over attacks from even low-skilled intruders.
Records show that Clinton additionally operated two more devices on her home network in Chappaqua, New York, that also were directly accessible from the Internet. One contained similar remote-control software that also has suffered from security vulnerabilities, known as Virtual Network Computing, and the other appeared to be configured to run websites.
Recall that a former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency has already told us that her e-mails were probably hacked by foreign intelligence:
Despite Hillary Clinton’s insistence that her personal e-mail account was properly secured, Lieutenant General Michael Flynn told Fox News on Monday that the account had “likely” been hacked by adversarial foreign governments.
The former Defense Intelligence Agency director said that there was a “very high” chance that Clinton’s e-mail had been breached by China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea. He added that even allied countries may have gotten in on the action, just “because they can.” Flynn said that while in theory Clinton could have secured her account and server well-enough to deter hackers, he remained skeptical that she actually had.
“I just know how our adversaries work,” he said. Flynn also took issue with Clinton’s explanation that she used the personal e-mail address rather than an official State Department one because she found it convenient to carry just one device.
“As a military officer, if I said I was doing something for convenience’s sake to the soldiers I was leading, and it was solely for my convenience instead of their welfare, I should be relieved of duty — I would expect to be fired,” he said.
I mean, who in their right mind would look at a circumstance like this and say, “oh, that’s safe, everything’s fine”?
Steve Kroft: Did you know about Hillary Clinton’s use of private email server—
President Barack Obama: No.
Steve Kroft: –while she was Secretary of State?
President Barack Obama: No.
Steve Kroft: Do you think it posed a national security problem?
President Barack Obama: I don’t think it posed a national security problem. I think that it was a mistake that she has acknowledged and– you know, as a general proposition, when we’re in these offices, we have to be more sensitive and stay as far away from the line as possible when it comes to how we handle information, how we handle our own personal data. And, you know, she made a mistake.
Well, I said in his right mind.