The Romanian hacker, who goes by the moniker “Guccifer,” confirmed in an exclusive Fox News report that he hacked into Clinton’s private email server, not once, but on multiple occasions in early 2013.
“For me, it was easy … easy for me, for everybody,” Marcel Lehel Lazar (that’s his real name) told Fox News’ Channel’s Chief Intelligence Correspondent Catherine Herridge. The network interviewed him from jail and had several phone calls with him as well. Fox News reiterated that they could not independently verify his claims.
As we reported earlier, the Romanian hacker, “Guccifer,” who first exposed Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, was extradited to the United States in March. Lazar was believed to have posted emails that were sent to then-Secretary of State Clinton on the internet, including correspondence from close Clinton advisor Sidney Blumenthal. Lazar was brought to the United States, just as reports indicate that the FBI investigation into Clinton’s email server is in in full swing. Lazar is charged with wire fraud, cyberstalking, identify theft, unauthorized access to computers and obstruction of justice.
Watch:
In fascinating detail, Lazar described to Fox News how he accessed the Clinton email server after first guessing Sidney Blumenthal’s password. Fox News reports:
“For example, 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.
In the process of mining data from the Blumenthal account, Lazar said he came across evidence that others were on the Clinton server.
Security experts interviewed by Fox News indicate that this is a plausible scenario. This latest revelation is significant because it raises question as to whether national security was compromised by maintaining this unsecured email server.
Update 6:58 pm
When asked by Fox News if he came across evidence that others had accessed the server, he replied “As fas as I remember, yes, there were up to 10 like IPs from other parts of the world. You see the numbers only but you can tell by the numbers the region of the world.”
Update 10:00 pm
Clinton’s campaign released this statement to The Washington Examine, which reads in part:
“There is absolutely no basis to believe the claims made by this criminal from his prison cell. In addition to the fact he offers no proof to support his claims, his descriptions of Secretary Clinton’s server are inaccurate. It is unfathomable that he would have gained access to her emails and not leaked them the way he did to his other victims..”