UK Conducts Quiz As Emails For U.S. End Up In Mali

UK authorities said on Friday they were investigating defense ministry emails that were sent to the wrong recipient after reports that messages intended for US military intelligence ended up with Russian ally Mali, Alistair Smout reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: Ministry of Defense officials were trying to contact the Pentagon, whose domain name is ".mil," but accidentally sent the emails to Mali, which has the domain name ".ml".

Ministry of Defense officials were trying to contact the Pentagon, whose domain name is ".mil," but accidentally sent the emails to Mali, which has the domain name ".ml", the Times newspaper reported.

Mali has cultivated close ties with Russia since a 2021 coup while distancing itself from former colonial power France and other Western nations. Last month, Mali asked a UN peacekeeping force to leave the country.

Britain said the information that was mistakenly shared was not highly sensitive. "We have opened an investigation after a small number of emails were mistakenly forwarded to an incorrect email domain," a spokesperson for the Ministry of Defense (MoD) said, without confirming the domain's name.

"We are confident they did not contain any information that could compromise operational security or technical data."

Last week, a Financial Times investigation said millions of US military emails had been misdirected to Mali's domain over the course of years due to the prevalence of such typos.

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