Millions of US military emails were being sent to Mali for over a decade

In this day and age of digital communication, encryption plays a key role in protecting military emails from falling into the hands of hackers or foreign adversaries. However, in a remarkable display of oversight, millions of emails intended for Pentagon employees over the last ten years were being routed to email accounts in Mali, all due to a simple typo where users mistakenly entered “.ML,” Mali’s country identifier, instead of the correct “.MIL” domain associated with the US military.

According to a report from the Financial Times, Dutch entrepreneur Johannes “Joost” Zuurbier, whose company manages the “.ML” domain, first discovered and reported the issue about ten years ago. However, when the US Government ignored his reports, he set up a system to capture these misdirected emails.

The US Military sent emails to Mali

While the system to catch the emails worked for a while, Zuurbier says that the sheer number of the emails was staggering as he intercepted over 117,000 emails in January alone. Additionally, these emails contained sensitive information related to the US military, including medical records, identity documents, lists of military personnel, photos of military bases, naval inspection reports, ship crew lists, and tax records. Moreover, the report also highlights an instance of an email that contained General James McConville’s travel itinerary, including his hotel room number, during his visit to Indonesia.

Furthermore, as Zuurbier’s contract with Mali nears its end, the intercepted emails will soon be accessible to Malian authorities and the military. This development raises significant concerns, especially in light of Russia’s recent presence in Mali through the Wagner Group, a state-backed paramilitary organization.

US government’s response

While the Department of Defence has blocked its email accounts from communicating with “.ML” email addresses, the fact that military personnel have been sending emails to the wrong addresses for over a decade raises some serious concerns.

In response to the report, Tim Gorman, a spokesperson for the Office of the Secretary of Defence, stated, “The Department of Defense (DoD) is aware of this issue and takes all unauthorized disclosures of Controlled National Security Information or Controlled Unclassified Information seriously.

Despite the measures, Gorman acknowledged that this approach does not prevent other government agencies or individuals working with the US government from mistakenly sending emails to Malian addresses.