African Country 'Mali' Morning Song
Incorrectly Entered '.ML' Instead of '.MIL'
Many Emails Containing Sensitive Information Included
It has been revealed that millions of emails intended for the U.S. military were massively sent to Mali, an ally of Russia, due to a single typo.
According to CNN and other U.S. media on the 17th (local time), millions of emails meant for U.S. Department of Defense employees over the past decade were sent to email accounts in the West African country of Mali due to a domain (internet address) typo.
The email addresses used by the U.S. military end with '.MIL', which stands for 'military', but the sender mistakenly entered Mali's country domain '.ML', causing the issue.
Mali, located in West Africa, has strong anti-French sentiment due to its colonial history. Russia is known to be gradually expanding its influence in Mali by exploiting this situation.
It was confirmed that many of the misdirected emails contained quite sensitive information, though not classified. The emails included maps of U.S. military facilities, travel plans of high-ranking generals, identity-related documents, passwords, and medical or financial information.
Notably, one of the misdirected emails contained the hotel room number where James McConville, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, stayed during his visit to Indonesia last May. Some of the misdirected emails were confirmed to have been sent by government internal staff.
This issue was first brought to light by Johannes Z?rbir, a Dutch entrepreneur who has managed Mali's country domain since 2013. Z?rbir told the British daily Financial Times (FT) that since January alone, 117,000 emails from within the Department of Defense were sent to Mali, and that many Department of Defense emails are sent to Mali every year. Z?rbir reportedly warned the U.S. government of this fact through various channels, including the U.S. Embassy in Mali, since early this year.
In this regard, the U.S. Department of Defense is known to be aware that controlled national security information was disclosed without authorization through the misdirected emails. Sabrina Singh, Deputy Spokesperson for the Department of Defense, said, "The reported misdirected emails were not sent from official Department of Defense email accounts but from personal accounts such as Gmail or Yahoo."
She emphasized that the Department of Defense takes the unauthorized disclosure of controlled information very seriously. She also added that to prevent misdirected emails caused by typos, emails created within the Department of Defense are now blocked from being sent to '.ML' domain email addresses.
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
