How did the Ministry of Defence accidentally email Russian ally Mali instead of the US?

Emails intended for the US military went to the government of Mali

Classified emails intended for the US military were unwittingly sent to the government of Russian ally Mali by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) due to a typing error.

A "small number" of emails intended for the Pentagon were instead sent to Mali because of the accidental omission of an "i" from an email address.

UK officials sent the messages to an address ending with the west African country's .ml domain, rather than the US military's .mil. The same error in the US was revealed last week to have resulted in millions of military emails going to Mali.

Mali's interim leader and head of Junta, Colonel Assimi Goïta. Picture: AFP via Getty Images

A Scottish cyber security expert said for an email to go through after being sent to the wrong domain, it would either have to be a coincidence the intended recipient of the email and the actual recipient had exactly the same name – or the Malian government would be using an old fashioned “catch all” system, which would take any emails going to the country’s domain name, no matter what the actual email address.

"If there is another email address that is very similar, then it can easily happen,” said Tom Davison, director of Forth Tech in Dunfermline. “But the odds of getting someone in the two organisations in this case with exactly the same name and the same email address is pretty low – though not impossible. These guys might want to put their odds on the lottery.”

Mr Davison said the “catch all” system was rarely used by organisations with a modern IT system.

"Most large organisations wouldn’t do that any more, you just end up with a huge amount of spam,” he said. “But it is possible that there’s a technical way to do it.”

He added: “What my question would be now is ‘what are they doing to stop it?’ There are ways that a warning can be set up on any email going to a particular domain name, which would ask ‘are you sure’?”

It has been argued the scale of the British mishap paled in comparison. The MoD has launched an investigation into the incident.

An MoD spokesman said: "We have opened an investigation after a small number of emails were mistakenly forwarded to an incorrect email domain. We are confident they did not contain any information that could compromise operational security or technical data. All sensitive information is shared on systems designed to minimise the risk of misdirection.”

The spokesman added: "The MoD constantly reviews its processes and is currently undertaking a programme of work to improve information management, data loss prevention, and the control of sensitive information.”

Mali has created close ties with Russia since a 2021 coup, when it moved to distance itself from former colonial power France and other Western nations. Last month authorities asked a UN peacekeeping force to leave the country.

Mali was among the six African countries promised free grain shipments by Russian president Vladimir Putin after the collapse of the Black Sea deal with Ukraine, while Moscow's Wagner mercenaries have also been deployed in Mali to fight alongside the army against jihadists.