is running an Exchange 2010 server with Web App enabled. Click the link to read more about what that means for the security of her correspondence as SoS.
There are free tools available on the surface web that can be modified to hammer this server with a brute force attack, which tries every combination of passwords until it hits the right one. A strong password makes brute forcing nearly impossible over the internet, but I would hazard a guess her password wasn't strong.
More sophisticated hackers would simply exploit specific unpatched vulnerabilities in the Exchange server build, or perhaps even the data center itself. Those tools tend to be more obscure and costlier.
I have a tool that I've customized to exploit http servers that do not contemplate brute force attacks at all, or not well. It took me less than a day to customize it to attack a certain web server my friend set up. I've never used it to do anything nefarious, unless you count beating my friend out of a decent bet that I could break the security on his web login app.
Considering how little I dabble in this stuff, it's pretty a pretty frightening idea that I might have been able to make decent headway at gaining access to the SoS's email server with free, surface net tools and some run of the mill coding ability.
In a twist of irony, I can imagine someone deep inside the NSA being alerted to an email account named hillary@clintonemail.com in 2010. This person would probably say "no way" and then alert his superiors of the situation. In that case, I imagine the NSA would take it upon themselves to break into all of the systems associated with it for the sole purpose of monitoring who else is trying to break into it. Whatever happened or didn't happen, it is ironic to me that we may owe the safety of that account to the NSA.
This post was edited on 3/30 6:51 PM by WirelessDamnEngineer85
This post was edited on 3/30 6:52 PM by WirelessDamnEngineer85
link
There are free tools available on the surface web that can be modified to hammer this server with a brute force attack, which tries every combination of passwords until it hits the right one. A strong password makes brute forcing nearly impossible over the internet, but I would hazard a guess her password wasn't strong.
More sophisticated hackers would simply exploit specific unpatched vulnerabilities in the Exchange server build, or perhaps even the data center itself. Those tools tend to be more obscure and costlier.
I have a tool that I've customized to exploit http servers that do not contemplate brute force attacks at all, or not well. It took me less than a day to customize it to attack a certain web server my friend set up. I've never used it to do anything nefarious, unless you count beating my friend out of a decent bet that I could break the security on his web login app.
Considering how little I dabble in this stuff, it's pretty a pretty frightening idea that I might have been able to make decent headway at gaining access to the SoS's email server with free, surface net tools and some run of the mill coding ability.
In a twist of irony, I can imagine someone deep inside the NSA being alerted to an email account named hillary@clintonemail.com in 2010. This person would probably say "no way" and then alert his superiors of the situation. In that case, I imagine the NSA would take it upon themselves to break into all of the systems associated with it for the sole purpose of monitoring who else is trying to break into it. Whatever happened or didn't happen, it is ironic to me that we may owe the safety of that account to the NSA.
This post was edited on 3/30 6:51 PM by WirelessDamnEngineer85
This post was edited on 3/30 6:52 PM by WirelessDamnEngineer85
link
