NBC Skips Latest on Hillary E-Mail Scandal: Hack Attacks

October 8th, 2015 12:59 PM

Despite a four-hour running time, NBC’s Today on Thursday skipped any mention of the latest on the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal. CBS This Morning managed 25 seconds. ABC’s Good Morning America offered 27 seconds. 

GMA’s Dan Harris highlighted an Associated Press report claiming, “Clinton's private e-mail server was the target of attempted cyber attacks from China, South Korea and Germany.” He added, “A contractor hired to protect Clinton's private information warned that her server was vulnerable.” 

Over on CBS This Morning, Charlie Rose noted: 

CHARLIE ROSE:  A report this morning says hackers tried to get inside Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server. The cyber attacks came from China, South Korea and Germany. They began after Clinton resigned as Secretary of State. A congressional document obtained by the Associated Press does not say if the attacks were political or just spam. A contractor hired to protect Clinton's private information warned that her server was vulnerable.

CBSNews.com explained: 

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Rodham Clinton's private email server, which stored some 55,000 pages of emails from her time as secretary of state, was the subject of attempted cyberattacks originating in China, South Korea and Germany after she left office in early 2013, according to a congressional document obtained by The Associated Press.

While the attempts were apparently blocked by a "threat monitoring" product that Clinton's employees connected to her network in October 2013, there was a period of more than three months from June to October 2013 when that protection had not been installed, according to a letter from 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.

...

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. Thousands of Clinton emails made public under the Freedom of Information Act have been heavily redacted for national security and other reasons.

A transcript of the October 8 GMA brief is below: 

8:02

DAN HARRIS: New details in the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation. The AP, the Associated Press, reporting this morning that Clinton's private e-mail server was the target of attempted cyber attacks from China, South Korea and Germany. The attacks came after her time as Secretary of State and were apparently blocked by security software. But, the report says, there was a three-month period after Clinton left the administration when that protection wasn't installed, meaning the server was potentially vulnerable.