A typo error reportedly caused “millions” of sensitive US military emails to be sent to Mali

For more than 10 years, millions of emails belonging to the US military have been sent to Mali, a West African country allied with Russia, because of a typo. according to a report by financial Times, Instead of adding the military’s .MIL domain to their recipient’s email address, people often mistakenly type in .ML, the country identifier for Mali.

Johannes Zurbier, a Dutch entrepreneur contracted to manage Mali’s domains, explains financial Times This has been happening for over a decade despite his repeated attempts to warn the US government. When Zurbier started seeing requests for non-existent domains like army.ml and navy.ml, he set up a system to catch these misdirected emails, which financial Times Reports “became increasingly overwhelmed and stopped collecting messages.”

Since January alone, Zurbier has reportedly intercepted 117,000 misdirected emails, many of which contained sensitive information relating to the US military. According to financial TimesMany of the emails contained medical records, identity document information, lists of employees at military bases, photographs of military bases, Navy inspection reports, ship crew lists, tax records, and more.

Some misdirected emails were sent by members of military staff, travel agents working with the US military, US intelligence, private contractors, and others. financial Times Report. For example, one email from earlier this year allegedly contained the itinerary of US Army Chief of Staff General James McConville’s trip to Indonesia. The email also included a “full list of room numbers” as well as “a description of McConville’s room key collection at the Grand Hyatt Jakarta”.

“The Department of Defense (DoD) is aware of this issue and takes seriously all unauthorized disclosures of controlled national security information or controlled unclassified information,” Tim Gorman, a spokesman for the Office of the Secretary of Defense, said in an emailed statement. ledge, Gorman says emails sent to Mali from .mil domains are “blocked” and “senders are informed that they must validate the email addresses of the intended recipients.”

Gorman acknowledges that this doesn’t prevent other government agencies or those working with the US government from accidentally sending email to Malian addresses. Nevertheless, he noted that “the department continues to provide direction and training to DOD personnel.”