Guccifer admits the hack of Hillary Clinton ’s private email server

Marcel Lehel Lazar also known as Guccifer has admitted the hack of the Hillary Clinton ‘s private email server occurred in 2013.

A Romanian hacker has claimed it was ‘easy’ to gain access to Hillary Clinton ’s email server.  Marcel Lehel Lazar, who goes by ‘Guccifer’, recently had a series of interviews with Fox and NBC News outlets, providing some details concerning his ability to hack the Clinton email server.

Lazar is currently sitting in a Virginia jail, being held for the hacking of email accounts of senior political members and Clinton friend, Sidney Blumenthal.  It was Clinton’s connection with Blumenthal that enabled Lazar to access the Clinton server.

Lazar first got into Blumenthal’s AOL email, in March 2013, through detailed Internet research to help him guess Blumenthal’s security question.  From Blumenthal’s email, Lazar was then able to track emails based on IP headers and ultimately gain access to the Clinton email server.

Lazar described the server to NBC News (from a Bucharest jail cell) as, ‘an open orchid on the Internet’ where he was able to find ‘hundreds of folders’.  While he says he only accessed the server twice, he claims to have obtained 2-gigabytes of information.  He has thus far refused to provide any of the emails to which he gained access.  Of the 2-gigabytes of information, he has told Fox News they are hidden because they are ‘too hot’ and ‘a matter of national security’.

It has been of concern about who has had access to the Clinton email server.  Lazar has said he was able to see ‘up to 10,…, IPs from other parts of the world.’ Research into emails during Clinton’s time as Secretary of State has already shown approximately 2,200 emails that contained classified information, with some identified as “Top Secret”.

Lazar has been extradited from Romania to face nine federal counts of hacking.  He has pleaded not guilty and faces a September 12^th trial, though he is willing to cooperate with government officials.

The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign camp has noted that Lazar is a criminal and there is ‘absolutely no basis to believe the claims’.  They also added the details he has given of the ‘server are inaccurate’.

Written by: Dave Snell

Author Bio: Dave Snell, a retired naval officer, is a Security Professional with twenty years of experience working cyber intelligence, project management, and counter-terrorism operations. 

 

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Edited by Pierluigi Paganini

(Security Affairs – Hillary Clinton, Guccifer)