Russian Hackers Tried to Infiltrate Hillary Clinton’s Email

Russian-linked hackers have tried to break into Hillary Clinton’s private email at least 5 times during her time as U.S. secretary of state.

Hackers linked with Russia have purportedly used a phishing scam campaign targeting the then secretary of state Hillary Clinton at least five times using infected emails, reports CBS News.

The infected emails were sent in disguise as speeding tickets originating from New York, on August 3, 2011. All five emails were sent within four hours early that morning and they contained attachments as zip files that resembled speeding tickets. It is still unknown of Clinton opened or accessed any of the zip files.

The Infected Emails

The zip files contained malware which when triggered would transmit the target’s computer’s information and data to three servers around the world, including one in Russia.

The emails appeared to arrive from “New York State – Department of Motor Vehicles.” It warned that a car was caught speeding “over 55 zone” on July 5 and was registered to Clinton.

The heading on all five emails were common and read “UNIFORM TRAFFIC TICKET,” while originating from various NYC.gov email addresses. The giveaway however was the spelling used in the content of the email. They read, “TO PLEAD, PRINT OUT THE ENCLOSED TICKET AND SEND IT TO TOWN COURT, CHATAM HALL., PO BOX 117.” Chatham was misspelled in every email received, a town that is a two hour drive from the Clinton family home in Chappaqua, New York.

One of the attached zip files containing the malware and disguised as a .zip file simply read: “Ticket-728-2011.zip”.

In addressing the new revelations about the latest hacking attempt, Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Clinton’s presidential campaign said:

“We have no evidence to suggest she replied to this email or that she opened the attachment. 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.”

Clinton’s use of a private email setup including a homebrew server at her home in New York is geared toward enhanced privacy and secrecy protection and the retention of records.

The hacking attempts were revealed when 6,300 pages of Clinton’s emails were released by the State Department.