'Millions' of sensitive US military emails were reportedly sent to Mali due to a typo
'Millions' of sensitive US military emails were reportedly sent to Mali due to a typo
Emails have been mistakenly routed to Mali for over a decade.
'Millions' of sensitive US military emails were reportedly sent to Mali due to a typo::Millions of emails were misdirected to Mali due to a typo that swapped the US military’s .MIL domain for Mali’s .ML domain, according to a report from the Financial Times.
That’s what we in the cybersec business call an “oopsie daisy I made a little fucky-wucky”.
For real though, this isn’t a problem yet. The TL;DR is that Mali has a top-level domain “.ml”. Just like “.co.uk” for the UK. And the military uses the domain “.mil”. So lots of emails accidentally get sent to “[Military email]@[Military email server].ml” instead of sending to .mil.
So a bad actor could simply set up an e-mail server with .ml domains that mirror the military’s .mil ones, and start collecting all of those mis-addressed emails.
So why isn’t it an issue yet? Because we had a contract with Mali to manage their domain. They literally signed administrative rights for the .ml domain over. So the US was able to basically set up their own .ml mirrored sites, to capture all of those mis-addressed emails. They have captured thousands throughout the years, because military members keep misaddressing their emails. Supposedly containing all kinds of sensitive data. Everything from medical records to troop movements and equipment inspection reports.
But that contract ends this week, so Mali could 100% start registering their own domains when that contract expires and domain registrations begin expiring.
Why am I not shocked? I hope that Microsoft gets heavily punished for this.
How is this Microsoft's fault?
They're probably using MS exchange /s
This isn’t Microsoft’s fault though?
The US military uses the .mil domain, and Mali uses the .ml domain. People in the military/contractors keep typoing email addresses and sending them to the .ml domain instead of .mil.
The nuclear move would simply be for the military to disallow any emails to the .ml domain, and warn contractors about the issue so they can do the same. It’d block any legitimate emails to a .ml domain, but aside from diplomats there likely isn’t a huge need to email anyone at a .ml domain anyways. Those people who do need to do so could be selectively allowed to email .ml addresses.