Clinton server hack attempts from China, Korea, Germany

Some cyberattacks blocked, but system unprotected for a bit.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private email server, containing an electronic inventory of some 55,000 pages of emails from her stint as secretary of state, was repeatedly hit by attempted cyberattacks originating in China, South Korea and Germany in 2014, according to a congressional document.

At least five cyberattack tries were apparently blocked by a “threat monitoring” product that was connected to her network in October 2013, eight months after she left office. But for more than three months earlier that year, her system was not protected because the security product had not been installed.

Clinton’s server operated without its threat monitoring protection between June and October 2013, according to a letter sent by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee. That means her server was possibly vulnerable to cyberattacks during that time.

It was not immediately clear whether the attempted intrusions into Clinton’s server were serious espionage threats or the sort of nuisance attacks that hit comput- er servers the world over. But the revelations underscore the extent to which any private email server is a target, raising further questions about Clinton’s decision to undertake sensitive government business over private email stored on a system based in her New York home.

Johnson’s letter to Victor Nappe, CEO of SECNAP, the company that provided the threat monitoring product, seeks a host of documents relating to the company’s work on Clinton’s server and the nature of the cyberintrusions detected. Johnson’s committee is investigating Clinton’s email arrangement.

Clinton has not said what, if any, firewall or threat protection was used on her email server before June 2013, including the time she was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013.

Any hackers who got access to her server in 2013 or 2014 could have stolen a trove of sensitive email traffic involving the foreign relations of the United States. Though thousands of Clinton emails have been made public under the Freedom of Information Act, many have been heavily redacted for national security and other reasons.

Clinton “essentially circumvented millions of dollars’ worth of cybersecurity investment that the federal government puts within the State Department,” said Justin Harvey, chief security officer of Fidelis Cybersecurity.