Hackers from China, South Korea and Germany targeted the private email server used by Hillary Clinton during her tenure as secretary of state, according to a congressional report published by Associated Press.

The attack private email server stored more than 50,000 pages of confidential U.S. foreign relations documents.

Like Us on Facebook

The attacks were largely unsuccessful because Clinton's employees had installed a "threat monitoring" software to the server in October 2013. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., who is chairman of the Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, raised concerns of a possible breach prior to the installation of the software.

Johnson highlighted the vulnerability of Clinton's private email server, which was reportedly without protection for three months before the software was installed.

Clinton, a Democratic presidential hopeful, has not officially stated the kind of protection (if any) that was installed on her private email server before and during her time as secretary of state. The server in question was kept in her New York City home. Many suspect it couldn't have had a software sophisticated enough to detect or protect against government backed cyber-attacks.

Justin Harvey, chief security officer of Fidelis Cybersecurity, said Clinton "wouldn't have had the infrastructure to detect or respond to cyber attacks from a nation-state."

"Those attacks are incredibly sophisticated, and very hard to detect and contain. And if you have a private server, it's very likely that you would be compromised," he explained.

Johnson, whose committee is investigating Clinton's email arrangement, has sent a letter to Victor Nappe, CEO of SECNAP, the company that provided the monitoring software installed on Clinton's server.

The committee is demanding the documentation of SECNAP's work on Clinton's server - particularly information about the type of cyber threats detected. In 2014, the company reported that a malicious software originating in China was detected "running an attack against" Clinton's server. 

Senatorial investigators say the cyber-attacks were launched between 2013 and 2014 .Three of these attempts originated in China, While the two others where from South Korea and Germany.

Investigators are yet to publicly ascertain if the attempts against Clinton's server were sophisticated espionage attacks or random malicious threats.

The FBI is currently investigating if Clinton's email arrangement endangered national security. Thousands of her emails have already been made public under the Freedom of Information Act although they have been edited for national security purposes.

TagsClinton's Server Hacking Attempts, Clinton's Server Wiped, China Hack Clinton's Server, Germany