Ever hear of Guccifer? His real name is Marcel Lazar Lehel and he is sitting in jail because he is accused of committing cyber-crimes, one of which was hacking into the email of Hillary Clinton’s good friend, Sidney Blumenthal’s (one of the hacked emails is below). According to the Smoking Gun who first reported this story in 2013, when “Guccifer” breached Blumenthal’s account, he discovered an assortment of correspondence sent to Hillary Clinton at the e-mail addresshdr22@clintonemail.com.
Now in an interview with Fox News, Guccifer not only claims to have easily accessed Hillary Clinton’s server /private email, but also claims there were other hackers there at the time.
Fox News Catherine Herridge interviewed the Romanian hacker from his Virginia Jail cell. According to Guccifer breaching the Clinton server was easy, “For me, it was easy … easy for me, for everybody.” The hacker provided details about how he got into the Clinton server and what he found when he got there. Fox News emphasizes they could not independently confirm Lazar’s claims, however independent computer analysts believe the story he told was very plausible.
The 44-year-old Lazar said he first compromised Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal’s AOL account, in March 2013, and used that as a stepping stone to the Clinton server. He said he accessed Clinton’s server “like twice,” though he described the contents as “not interest[ing]” to him at the time.
“I was not paying attention. For me, it was not like the Hillary Clinton server, it was like an email server she and others were using with political voting stuff,” Guccifer said.
According to the hacker he first got into Sidney Blumenthal’s email by guessing the answer to his security question. From there he worked on getting into the Clinton server.
“..when Sidney Blumenthal got an email, I checked the email pattern from Hillary Clinton, from Colin Powell from anyone else to find out the originating IP. … When they send a letter, the email header is the originating IP usually,” Lazar explained.
He said, “then I scanned with an IP scanner.”
Lazar emphasized that he used readily available web programs to see if the server was “alive” and which ports were open. Lazar identified programs like netscan, Netmap, Wireshark and Angry IP, though it was not possible to confirm independently which, if any, he used.
Guccifer claims that while he was grabbing the IP data from Blumenthal’s account he came across evidence that others were on Clinton’s server. “As far as I remember, yes, there were … up to 10, like, IPs from other parts of the world.”
While Lazar’s claims cannot be independently verified, three computer security specialists, including two former senior intelligence officials, said the process described is plausible and the Clinton server, now in FBI custody, may have an electronic record that would confirm or disprove Guccifer’s claims.
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Cybersecurity expert Morgan Wright observed, “The Blumenthal account gave [Lazar] a road map to get to the Clinton server. … You get a foothold in one system. You get intelligence from that system, and then you start to move.”
Think about this for a moment. Guccifer, who had no formal computer training and had no idea of what to look for, was able to easily get into Clinton’s server gain and access to Hillary’s emails and this country’s most sensitive information. Now just imagine what the experts in countries like Russia, China, and North Korea who knew what to look for were able to read.
Asked what he would say to those skeptical of his claims, Lazar cited “the evidence you can find in the Guccifer archives as far as I can remember.”
Recently extradited, Lazar faces trial Sept. 12 in the Eastern District of Virginia. He has pleaded not guilty to a nine-count federal indictment for his alleged hacking crimes in the U.S. Victims are not named in the indictment but reportedly include Colin Powell, a member of the Bush family and others including Blumenthal.
Even more ominous is Guccifer’s claim that he has nothing to hide and wants to cooperate with the U.S. government and that he has hidden two gigabytes of data that is “too hot” and “it is a matter of national security.”
Even before this interview it the evidence presented in the Hillary email scandal proves that she should never again be trusted with America’s secrets. If confirmed, Guccifer’s claims may turn out to be what the FBI needs to put Ms. Clinton where she belongs….jail.
