Pentagon Discourages Staff From Using Personal Emails After Letters Misdirected To Mali

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th July, 2023) The US Department of Defense (DoD) is aware of unauthorized disclosures of controlled national security information amid reports that millions of military emails were mistakenly sent to accounts in Mali over the last decade, and discourages the use of personal email addresses for official duties, Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said on Monday.

Earlier in the day, the Financial Times reported that over the past decade, millions of emails intended for the Pentagon were wrongfully sent to electronic addresses located in Mali. The error happened due to typos made when entering Mali's ".ML" instead of the DoD's ".MIL" web domain.

"We are aware of these unauthorized disclosures of controlled national security information ... We always discourage people from using their personal emails. Official work should be done on official channels and under official emails," Singh said during a press briefing.

Singh noted that correspondence sent through a DoD email address would automatically bounce back if it was sent to a .ML web domain, or if a typo was inserted inadvertently.

She also said that since the first unauthorized disclosures at the beginning of 2023, the department has implemented policy and put it in place training mechanisms to ensure emails are not sent to incorrect domains.