The connections between Mike Lynch’s Darktrace Company, US and British Intelligence are quite a bit more in depth than had been inferred in the Fortune article featured in the previous report below
Darktrace has developed a reputation as a sleek AI cybersecurity startup with ties to spy agencies like MI5 and the U.S. National Security Agency.
Excerpted from a lengthier article focusing on intelligence ties..
It’s safe to conclude, in my opinion, that Mike Lynch and his coincidentally killed partner Stephen Chamberlain were both former intelligence officials.
The members of the Darktrace company were former intelligence officers
Lynch founded Darktrace in partnership with former British intelligence officials in 2013, after selling the software company Autonomy in 2011. The company was set up to combat cyberattacks by using software that learns the patterns of behaviour of every agent in an organisation and detecting any unusual activity.
One of the co-founders was Stephen Haxter, a senior member of MI5’s cyber defence team, who became Darktrace’s chief executive. Then Haxter, according to Politico, hired 30-year veteran of the secret service GCHQ (the British government’s communications headquarters), Andrew France, as the company’s CEO – who later joined the board of directors. Lynch served on the board until 2018, when he resigned after being accused of fraud.
Lynch served on the board until 2018
In addition, former MI5 chief Jonathan Evans also served on Darktrace’s board for a time, while Jim Penrose, a 17-year US National Security Agency veteran, was in charge of the company’s US-related business. Other former spies at the company included technology director Dave Palmer, who previously worked at MI5 and GCHQ, and security director John Richardson, who worked in cyber defence for the UK government.
Lynch’s links with intelligence agencies go back 28 years
Lynch’s connections to the intelligence sphere predate Darktrace. His first company Cambridge Neurodynamics, which specialized in computer fingerprint recognition, had contracts with British intelligence agencies, Politico reports.
Lynch spun Autonomy out of Neurodynamics in 1996. The company, which Chamberlain joined in 2005, used machine learning to analyze data from sources such as intercepted phone calls and emails.
Autonomy also won high-profile tenders from UK and US government agencies, including a contract to provide infrastructure to the US Office of Homeland Security to analyse intelligence in the context of the post-9/11 war on terror.
The company reportedly held other contracts with US government agencies such as the military, NASA and US intelligence agencies. GCHQ and MI6 are also believed to have been clients. Furthermore,
Richard Pearl (Richard Perle)a former Pentagon appointee, served as one of the company’s directors.
The name was spelled incorrectly in the article, but, there is little doubt the man being referred to is this Richard Perle- How interesting that name keeps popping up from time to time. Yup, this Richard Perle. Neo Con extraordinaire and Clean Break author for Benjamin Netanyahu
The fraud charges and the acquittal
Lynch had been in the headlines in recent months because of a high-profile fraud case. According to Sky News, on 15 June he was cleared by a US court of all charges relating to the sale of Autonomy to Hewlett-Packard in 2011.
He was extradited to the US to stand trial in May last year and spent 13 months under house arrest in San Francisco as he awaited trial on 17 charges of conspiracy and fraud – later reduced to 15 – brought against him by the US Justice Department.
In 2021 Microsoft and Darktrace partnered up
Microsoft is partnering with Darktrace, a leading autonomous cyber security AI company that uses self-learning artificial intelligence to respond to threats at machine speed.
The business, which was founded in Cambridge, UK, in 2013, provides best-in-class cyber AI to protect organisations against attacks of all kinds – including insider threats, espionage, supply chain attacks, phishing and ransomware.