Millions of sensitive US military email leaked to Russian ally due to typing error

New Delhi, 18th July 2023: It has recently come out that due to a typing error, millions of extremely secret US military emails were forwarded to Mali, a country in West Africa. Given that it is a close partner of Russia, the released emails could pose a substantial threat to the US. The emails were redirected due to a mix-up between Mali’s and the US Military’s domain names.

While the US military uses the ‘.mil’ suffix for its email addresses, Mali utilises the ‘.ml’ domain as its nation identification.

According to the Financial Times, the problem was discovered by Dutch internet entrepreneur Johannes Zuurbier, who manages the Mali domain. Zuurbier has frequently engaged senior individuals in the US, including the defence attache in Mali, a senior senior adviser to the US national cyber security service, and the White House, in an attempt to encourage them to take the problem seriously.

Zuubier wrote in a letter to the US authorities, “This risk is real and could be exploited by adversaries of the US.”

Meanwhile, senior Pentagon officials have stated that they are aware of the situation and are treating it seriously. According to Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Commander Tim Gorman, the Department of Defence, “is aware of this issue and takes all unauthorised disclosures of controlled national security information or controlled unclassified information seriously.”

He also stated that while it is not practical to install technical controls to prevent the use of personal email accounts for official business, DoD personnel are receiving the required training and direction.