Due to a typo, millions of US military exchanges were sent… to Mali

An error in an email address and millions of military documents are sent to Mali instead of being sent to the appropriate US military entities, reports the financial times. The dizzy dudes typed “.ml” instead of “.mil,” common to all US military email addresses. The first bugs were reported almost 10 years ago.

Many of these emails contain very sensitive data about US military personnel. In detail, some sent messages refer to medical data, information about identity documents such as passport numbers sent by the special agency of the Department of State, lists of personnel at the bases, inspection reports, contracts with subcontractors or fiscal and financial records.

A misdirected email this year detailed the travel itinerary for US Army Chief of Staff James McConville and his delegation for a visit to Indonesia in May.

Another example, even more sensitive. An FBI agent accidentally sent six emails to Mali due to the typo. One included a Turkish diplomatic letter to the US State Department about possible operations by the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). He also transmitted a series of notes on internal US terrorism and sent a document on the strategies deployed by the Revolutionary Guard in Iran to carry out espionage activities in the United States.

a 10 year mistake

The typo in the emails was first identified a decade ago by Johannes Zuurbier, a Dutch businessman who has a contract to manage the domain for Mali’s national web. He has nearly 117,000 misdirected emails, including 1,000 on July 12 alone.

Earlier this month, he sent a letter to the US Department of Defense saying: “This risk is real and could be exploited by adversaries of the United States.” In a tense geopolitical context, it is important to note that the Russian Wagner paramilitary group operates in Mali and the Central African Republic.

Lt. Tim Gorman, a Pentagon spokesman, told the financial times that the Department of Defense “is aware of this problem and takes all unauthorized disclosures of controlled national security information seriously.”

He told the media that emails sent to addresses in Mali “are blocked before they leave the ‘.mil’ domain and the sender must validate the email addresses of the intended recipients.”