CONFIDENTIAL: Pentagon Accidently Leaked Millions of Sensitive Messages to African Country

According to the Pentagon, millions of emails and communications containing sensitive information have been sent to the African nation of Mali due to a typical error within the U.S. military.

The “.MIL” domain name, which is used by the US military for email addresses, is frequently spelled incorrectly as “.ML,” the Mali domain name. According to a preliminary investigation from the Financial Times, the leak included sensitive but unclassified information such diplomatic correspondence, tax returns, passwords, and top commanders’ travel schedules.

In a statement to Fox News on Monday, the Pentagon recognized the problem and said that emails received outside the “.MIL” domain are normally prohibited.

“The Department of Defense is aware of this issue and takes all unauthorized disclosures of Controlled National Security Information or Controlled Unclassified Information seriously. DoD has implemented policy, training, and technical controls to ensure that emails from the “.mil” domain are not delivered to incorrect domains. Such emails are blocked before they leave the .mil domain and the sender is notified that they must validate the email addresses of the intended recipients,” the Pentagon said.

“While it is not possible to implement technical controls preventing the use of personal email accounts for government business, the Department continues to provide direction and training to DoD personnel. The office of the DoD CIO oversees this matter,” the statement continued.

The first person to learn of the breaches was Mali’s domain manager, a Dutch businessman named Johannes Zuurbier. According to Zuurbier, he has gathered at least 117,000 emails from the Pentagon since January alone and many more in years prior, according to the Financial Times.

“This risk is real and could be exploited by adversaries of the US,” he told the outlet.

Zuurbier stated that the control of Mali will return to the country’s government, which is closely associated with Russia, when his ten-year contract to oversee the country’s domain expires this week.

The discovery of the leak comes just a few days after Chinese hackers used a Microsoft cloud platform to obtain emails belonging to the US government. Despite the fact that Microsoft is still looking into the breach’s origin, President Biden’s administration has promised to hold those accountable accountable.

Microsoft reported last week that an organization called Storm-0558, based in China, had accessed email accounts belonging to about 25 different companies, including U.S. government institutions.

SOURCE: FOX NEWS