The Pentagon is investigating how a set of internal emails from the US Special Operations Command appeared to have been publicly exposed online and leaked unclassified data for nearly two weeks without the knowledge of the military, a spokesperson told CNN.
The chief of information for the Department of Defense and the US Army Cyber Command is investigating the cause of the incident and “why this issue was not detected sooner,” US Navy Commander Jessica McNulty, a spokeswoman, told CNN Thursday night. of the Pentagon.
The investigation comes after an independent cybersecurity researcher discovered three terabytes of unclassified Department of Defense emails on the public Internet, apparently due to a misconfiguration of a computer server and dated September 8. February. That amount is equivalent to the storage of dozens of standard smartphones.
CNN reported earlier this week that the military had launched an investigation into the investigator’s report.
Samples of the emails that the investigator, Anurag Sen, shared with CNN dated back years and included standard information about US military contracts and requests from Defense Department employees to have his documentation processed.