5 Simple Questions Hillary Should Have Asked Before Hosting Her Own Email

Posted Jan 12, 2016 by Ron Vaughn (@YourVirtualCIO)

There has been a lot said about Hillary Clinton and her private email server.  All politics aside, I thought it might be of benefit to look at some of the reasons that someone might want to host their own email server, and which questions they should ask before making this decision.  First, let’s look at some of the benefits of self-hosting, the primary being Privacy, Control, Control, and Control.  Let’s take a look at them individually.

 

Benefits of Self-Hosting

• Privacy – Hosting your own email on your own premises means you can control all aspects of privacy, including who has administrative access, who has network access, as well as who has physical access to the hardware it is running on. In contrast, by hosting with another party, in Hillary’s case the government, you are trusting someone else to keep your data private.  In your case a prime example could be a company like Google, which can change its privacy policy, changing the rules of the game without your knowledge.
• Control of your data– Self-hosting also enables you to retain full control over the policies regarding your data. Depending on your business needs, data-retention policies may be crucial, especially as it relates to court-ordered access to your email archives.  Having control over your policies to retain mail as long as legally required, or for as long as you deem necessary, may be an extremely important consideration.
• Control of your features and updates – Third-party vendors roll out feature changes and updates at will, oftentimes removing features you count on, and adding features you don’t want or need. Self-hosting enables you to make these changes in your own time rather than on someone else’s schedule.
• Control of your downtime – Of course you can’t completely control your downtime, otherwise you would probably never have any downtime. However, with self-hosting you can at least have control over your own destiny as to how, when, and what you are able to do about it.  And again, as far as scheduled maintenance is concerned, that is scheduled when you want it to be, not when a vendor decides.

 

Now that we have looked at the main benefits, what are the 5 questions Hillary and you should ask before hosting your own email server?

1. Who is administrating it? - Until 2013, Justin Cooper, a longtime aide to former President Bill Clinton, managed the system. Cooper had no security clearance or expertise in computer security.¹   It is not uncommon for a business to use a family member or friend to handle the keys to their kingdom.  It is also not uncommon that these individuals are highly unqualified and can thus place your business at great risk.
2. Where is it located? - The email server was stored in the Clintons' home in Chappaqua, New York until 2013; after that it becomes less clear as to whether it was hosted in a data center in New Jersey or a network employees bathroom closet in Denver for a short time. Regardless, the question needs to be asked; in which physical location does the server and data reside?
3. What is being stored on it? – In this instance, the answer is of course emails. However, the big question is what kind of emails?  Classified, top secret, or just favored yoga positions?  These questions can help you decide the degree of physical and virtual security required for your server.
4. How is it being backed up? – In the Clinton’s case, up until 2013 apparently it wasn’t, except for some backups of emails on USB drives. After that the Clinton’s network provider apparently started using Datto, one of the premier backup systems available.  Whether Datto was better at backup than the Clinton’s desired remains to be seen.
5. When is it being backed up? – Backups can occur as often or as infrequently as you desire. This depends on the amount of data that you are creating and the importance of that data as to how often you backup.  The aforementioned Datto can back up as frequently as every 5 minutes.  You can decide what best fits your needs.

As you can see, everyone’s needs are different, and every case is unique.  Whether you are an aspiring presidential candidate or the owner of your own business, there are many reasons you may want to host your own email server.  You just need to be able to answer the right questions first.