Contributor

Now MI6 loses handheld in computer theft incident

Opinion
Oct 7, 20081 min

Last week it was MI5 and a camera with pictures of terrorist weapons and documents sold on eBay.  This week it is “an encrypted hand-held computer” stolen from an open window in a “house rented by MI6” (safe house?). MI6 is of course the UK’s secret agency.   I really wish John Le Carre would bring back Smiley.  He is needed! 

Will we ever know if MI6 really enforces encryption on thier hand held devices? 

Richard Stiennon is chief research analyst at IT-Harvest, the firm he founded in 2005 to cover the 1,600 vendors that make up the IT security industry. He is the author of Surviving Cyberwar (Government Institutes, 2010) and There Will Be Cyberwar: How the Move to Network-Centric Warfighting Set the Stage for Cyberwar. He is a member of the advisory board at the Information Governance Initiative and principal of TrueBit Cyber Partners. He also serves on the R2-TAC, the technical advisory committee for the Responsible Recycling standard for e-waste.

Stiennon was chief marketing officer for Fortinet Inc. and vice president of threat research at Webroot Software. Prior to that, he was vice president of research at Gartner Inc. He has a B.S. in aerospace engineering and an M.A. in war in the modern world from King’s College, London.

The opinions expressed in this blog are those of Richard Stiennon and do not necessarily represent those of IDG Communications Inc. or its parent, subsidiary or affiliated companies.

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