At the origin of this embarrassing affair for the soldiers of the Pentagan, a simple typing error.
It’s a simple typo, with serious consequences. In the United States, millions of e-mails intended for employees of the Pentagon (the equivalent of the Ministry of Defense), were sent by mistake to Mali, for ten years, according to the economic daily Financial Times.
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In question: a misunderstanding that comes from very similar domain extensions between the West African country (.ml) and the American army (.mil). Luckily, the Malian domain name was managed between 2013 and 2023 by a Dutch entrepreneur, who pinpointed this error. The problem was thus identified for the first time, almost ten years ago by Johannes Zuurbier, according to the file revealed by the London newspaper. This entrepreneur, based in Amsterdam, claims to have contacted American officials on several occasions, from the United States Embassy in Mali to the White House.
Sensitive documents, but nothing top secret
Among these messages are hundreds of thousands of spam messages. But also, and this is much more problematic, certain sensitive information. The business daily FinancialTimes reveals in particular that the travel itinerary of an American general in Indonesia was sent in detail to Mali, down to his hotel room number.
There is also a jumble of “X-rays and medical data, information on identity documents, crew lists for ships, lists of personnel at the bases, maps of the facilities, photos of the bases , naval inspection reports, contracts, criminal complaints against personnel, internal bullying investigations, official travel itineraries, reservations, and tax and financial records,” the report said. FT.
Fortunately for the American authorities, no top secret documents were sent by mistake. Still, it’s an embarrassing affair for the Pentagon, which had been alerted by the contractor in question. Especially since since this week, the .ml extension once again belongs to the Malian authorities, whose proximity to Moscow is no secret.
After ten years of management, the contract expired. In a letter he sent in early July, Johannes Zuurbier believes that “This risk is real and could be exploited by adversaries of the United States“.