Typos expose Russian ally to sensitive US military info.
A Massive Security Breach: Highly Sensitive US Military Emails Leaked to Russian Ally
In a shocking revelation, a massive number of U.S. military emails containing highly sensitive information, including passwords to intelligence networks, have been leaked to a domain held by a Russian ally in Africa. This alarming breach occurred due to a simple “typo,” according to the Financial Times.
Johannes Zuurbier, a Dutch internet expert, discovered this issue a decade ago when he began managing the Malian government’s country code, ML. Despite his efforts to alert the U.S. government about the potential risks, little has been done to resolve the problem, as reported by the FT.
On Monday, control of the .ML domain will revert back to Mali, potentially granting access to accidental messages for a country where Russia has a significant foothold.
“This risk is real and could be exploited by adversaries of the U.S.,” Zuurbier wrote in a letter to the U.S. government.
Since January, Zuurbier has collected approximately 117,000 misdirected emails caused by senders mistakenly typing .ML instead of .MIL in email suffixes. The .MIL domain is used for all U.S. military and Pentagon email addresses. Zuurbier hoped that documenting these misdirected emails would finally prompt the U.S. to address the issue.
Despite his efforts, Zuurbier has faced repeated failures in getting the attention of White House and U.S. defense officials, the defense attaché in Mali, and a senior adviser to the U.S. national cybersecurity service.
The Department of Defense acknowledges the issue and takes unauthorized disclosures of controlled national security information seriously, according to Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Cmdr Tim Gorman.
Emails sent directly from the .MIL domain to .ML addresses are blocked and senders are notified to validate the email addresses of the intended recipients.
While most of the emails Zuurbier received are marked as spam and do not contain classified information, there have been some concerning instances. For example, one email included travel details for Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville’s trip to Indonesia, and another contained documents marked “For Official Use Only” and an alert from the Turkish embassy about potential terrorist operations.
Former NSA director retired Adm. Mike Rogers emphasized the seriousness of the situation, stating, “If you have this kind of sustained access, you can generate intelligence even just from unclassified information.”
It is crucial that immediate action is taken to address this security breach and prevent further leaks of highly sensitive information.
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The post Typos Involving One Small Letter Have Been Exposing Russian Ally to Highly Sensitive US Military Information appeared first on The Western Journal.
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