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Written question asked by John Healey (Labour) on Friday, 1 September 2023, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 6 September 2023 (named day). It was answered by Andrew Murrison (Conservative) on Wednesday, 6 September 2023 on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Ministry of Defence: Email

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 25 July 2023 to Question 194793 on Ministry of Defence: Correspondence, if he will make a statement to the House once the assessment on email traffic from his Department to .ML domains has been completed.

Answer

The Ministry of Defence takes the security of our people, our information and our systems very seriously. While all sensitive information is shared on systems which would prevent such misdirection, policies are put in place on all email systems to minimise the risk of such mistakes. On OFFICIAL systems, data loss prevention tools will prompt users who seek to send OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE information outside of Government domains, drawing attention to, and allowing the correction of, errors such as mistyped domain names.

Investigations are still ongoing however to date, we have identified 55 emails that have been sent to the .ML top level domain since January 2022. Of these, it is assessed that 15 were misdirected emails, that were destined for a .MIL address. We are confident that this small number of emails did not contain any technical data or information that could compromise operational security. Seven of these were sent in 2022, and eight in 2023.

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
195658
Session
2022-23
Related items
Ministry of Defence: Correspondence
Tuesday, 25 July 2023
Written questions
House of Commons
Grouped for answer
Yes
Subjects
Correspondence Email Ministry of Defence
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk