Top IT official: Disabling security for Clinton server laid out 'welcome mat' for hackers
A 2010 decision temporarily disabling State Department security
features to accommodate Hillary Clinton’s private server effectively
laid out a "welcome mat" for hackers and foreign intelligence services, a
leading IT official who oversaw computer security at the Defense
Intelligence Agency told Fox News.
"You're putting not just the Clinton server at risk
but the entire Department of State emails at risk," said Bob Gourley,
former chief technology officer (CTO) for the DIA. "When you turn off
your defensive mechanisms and you're connected to the Internet, you're
almost laying out the welcome mat for anyone to intrude and attack and
steal your secrets."
He was referring to revelations from new
court-released documents in a lawsuit by conservative watchdog Judicial
Watch. They show the State Department temporarily turned off security
features in 2010 so that emails from then-Secretary of State Clinton's
personal server would stop going to the department's spam folders.
Gourley, who has more than two decades of
cybersecurity experience and is now a partner with strategic consulting
and engineering firm Cognitio, noted the Russians did breach the State
Department system at some point – though it’s unclear when, and whether
disabling the security functions in 2010 played a role.
He said, though, that when the Russian presence was
detected in 2014, there were indications “they had been there for quite a
while … [and] also hacked into unclassified systems in the White
House.” He said the Russians would have tried “everything possible to
get in.”
Gourley said: "A professionally run system is going to keep their defenses up all the time to at least make it hard on them.”
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Judicial Watch Releases Former State Department IT Official Bryan Pagliano Deposition Testimony
JUNE 23, 2016
Get the Deposition HERE (PDF)
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