The Truth About Hacking Attempts on Clinton’s Private Server Is Likely Much Worse Than We Thought

When FBI Director James Comey spoke to the press in July, he said he didn't believe Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's private email server had been hacked during her tenure as Secretary of State — though he noted it could have been.

Comey stated that “hostile actors” gained access to the accounts of people near Clinton, that her use of a private system was well known and “readily apparent,” and that the former Secretary of State used her private email “extensively while outside the United States,” including in high-risk areas in which she was surrounded by savvy adversaries.

Then the news broke in September that the email account of a Bill Clinton staffer had been hacked using a system called Tor. That account was on the Clintons' private server.

According to The Hill:

“The FBI report notes that, on January 5, 2013, server logs show a computer or computers using the Tor network accessing the staffer’s account.”

Now, a new report claims that SECNAP, a cybersecurity firm tasked with protecting Clinton's private server, logged approximately 53 “incident reports triggered by unusual activity.” The “incidents” occurred over a 14-month period beginning in October 2013. It's possible that some of the 53 incidents were false alarms. However, it's unlikely all of them were.

It gets worse, as The Washington Examiner reports (emphasis added):

“The documents show Clinton's server was unprotected from June 2013 until October of that year, when Clinton's main tech firm, Platte River Networks, contracted SECNAP to provide security.”

Given this, there's no way to know if Clinton's system was subject to any breach attempts prior to October 2013, when SECNAP was hired. However, it stands to reason that if SECNAP found possible breach attempts during its time monitoring Clinton's system, such attempts were likely occurring prior to October 2013 as well.

Datto, a company responsible for backing up Clinton's server, said in 2015 that a “white hacker” had breached their own system, and alerted them to the issue.

Additionally, The Washington Post reports that outsiders tried to breach Clinton's server in 2011 (emphasis added):

“'Don’t email HRC anything sensitive,' aide Huma Abedin messaged Clinton chief of staff Cheryl D. Mills and deputy chief Jake Sullivan at 1:31 a.m. on Jan. 10, 2011. The day before, Abedin was twice told via emails from Justin Cooper, a Bill Clinton aide who set up the original private server in 2009, that he had shut the system down because of hacking attempts.”

The FBI claims that it didn't find evidence that Clinton's email had ever been hacked. However, this new revelation from SECNAP regarding the 53 “incidents,” as well as the fact that Clinton's system had to be shut down because of hacking attempts in 2011, and that a Clinton server email account was actually hacked using Tor, the FBI's claims are being stretched beyond credulity.