It's not just emails: State Department cybersecurity deteriorated every year under Clinton
A compilation of State Department audits finds that the agency's cybersecurity — already sub-par when Hillary Clinton took office as secretary of state in 2009 — declined each successive year Clinton remained in charge.
One audit in particular scored the department 42 out of 100 on a cybersecurity report card, a lower grade than was given to the Office of Personnel Management, which announced this past summer that it had suffered a data breach affecting some 4 million people. Clinton's released emails also suggest that the department's computer system is in bad shape: "State's technology is so antiquated that NO ONE uses a State-issued laptop," wrote one Clinton aide.
The State Department itself says that its cybersecurity is in great shape, with a system that defeats "almost 100 percent" of 4 billion digital attacks each year. Since Clinton was replaced by current Secretary of State John Kerry, audits show the agency's cybersecurity has continued to go downhill.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
11 hotels opening in 2026 to help you reconnect with natureThe Week Recommends Find peace on the beaches of Mexico and on a remote Estonian island
-
Zimbabwe’s driving crisisUnder the Radar Southern African nation is experiencing a ‘public health disaster’ with one of the highest road fatality rates in the world
-
The Mint’s 250th anniversary coins face a whitewashing controversyThe Explainer The designs omitted several notable moments for civil rights and women’s rights
-
‘One Battle After Another’ wins Critics Choice honorsSpeed Read Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, won best picture at the 31st Critics Choice Awards
-
Son arrested over killing of Rob and Michele ReinerSpeed Read Nick, the 32-year-old son of Hollywood director Rob Reiner, has been booked for the murder of his parents
-
Rob Reiner, wife dead in ‘apparent homicide’speed read The Reiners, found in their Los Angeles home, ‘had injuries consistent with being stabbed’
-
Hungary’s Krasznahorkai wins Nobel for literatureSpeed Read László Krasznahorkai is the author of acclaimed novels like ‘The Melancholy of Resistance’ and ‘Satantango’
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
