"Hillary Clinton hired a Connecticut company to back up her emails, and due to a technical glitch some may still reside on one of the firm’s “cloud” storage sites, a Republican Senate committee chairman revealed.
The disclosures, in a letter Monday from Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, heighten the possibility that some of Clinton’s more than 31,000 personal emails may still be recovered. She said last March that she deleted them all upon turning over her official emails to the State Department in December 2014.
Congressional committees have voiced skepticism as to whether the 30,940 emails that the Democratic presidential candidate handed over represented all of her official emails. The FBI is separately investigating whether Clinton’s arrangement put classified information at risk.
His letter to the chief executive of Datto Inc. of Norwalk, Conn., offers the first public confirmation that Clinton or her aides arranged for a backup of her email server after leaving office."
Hillary Clinton Hires an MSP
Enter Platte River, the MSP that maintained Clinton's personal email server. According to McClatchyDC:"On May 31, 2013, four months after Clinton left office, the Clinton Executive Service Corp., which oversaw her email server contracts, hired Platte River to maintain her account. Its New Jersey-based server replaced the server in the basement of her New York home that handled her emails as secretary of state.
At the same time, Platte River retained Datto to set up a virtual backup server that could provide immediate recovery if the primary server failed, Johnson said in his letter. Datto says it offers two kinds of backup storage: a private cloud virtual server that takes data from a server and converts it into “virtual machines that can be booted instantly,” and an off-site “secure cloud.” "
"In mid-August, Datto took steps on its own to disconnect its server from Platte River’s system, thereby preserving the data in its possession from being erased or altered. The person familiar with the matter said the company doesn’t access the data it stores and cannot say what it has in its possession.
Datto is now complying to a request from the FBI to preserve information relevant to the investigation, and has obtained Mrs. Clinton’s consent to turn over that data to law enforcement, according to the person.
A spokesman for Platte River Networks said the Datto device was programed to back up only 30 days’ of email. It has since been turned over to the FBI, he said."
MSPs, Clouds and Data Privacy
For MSPs that manage customer data in third-party clouds, it's important to understand so-called blind subpoenas. To paraphrase Data on the Edge:Let's assume an MSP (Data Controller) stores the data of its customers (Data Subjects) with a cloud service provider (Data Processor). Then, assume a blind subpoena is served on the Data Processor (the CSP) without notice to the Data Controller (MSP) or the Data Subject (End Customer). The Data Controller and/or Data Subject do not and may never have an opportunity to object or move to quash the subpoena. And most importantly, the Data Processor may be forbidden to notify the Data Controller or Subject of subpoena service.