Russia-linked hackers tried at least five times to pry into Hillary Clinton's private e-mail account while she was U.S. secretary of state, e-mails released on September 30 show.
Clinton received the infected e-mails, disguised as speeding tickets from a town where she lives in New York, in August 2011. The e-mails instructed recipients to print attached tickets. Opening the attachment would have allowed hackers to take over control of a victim's computer.
Security researchers who analyzed the malicious software said that infected computers would transmit information from victims to at least three server computers overseas, including one in Russia.
That doesn't necessarily mean Russian intelligence was involved.
The phishing attempts highlight the risk posed by Clinton's habit of using unsecure e-mail. It is not clear whether the scam succeeded.
Nick Merrill, a spokesman for Clinton's presidential campaign, said it did not.
"We have no evidence to suggest she replied to this e-mail or that she opened the attachment," he said. "There is no evidence that the system was ever breached. All these e-mails show is that, like millions of other Americans, she received spam."
