Missing tech tycoon Mike Lynch’s ties to UK spy chiefs

Former head of MI5 Jonathan Evans also sat on the Darktrace’s board for a time, while Jim Penrose, a 17-year veteran of the U.S.’s National Security Agency, formerly headed up the company’s American operations.

Other former spooks at the company included director of technology Dave Palmer, who previously worked at MI5 and GCHQ, and director of security John Richardson, who worked on cyber defence for the UK government.

The Cambridge-based company fights cyberattacks using software that learns the behavioral patterns of every actor within an organization and detects unusual activity.

But Lynch’s connections with the murky sphere of intelligence predated Darktrace. His first company Cambridge Neurodynamics, which specialized in computer-based fingerprint recognition, held contracts with the U.K. intelligence agencies.

“They have the most interesting problems,” he told Wired magazine in 2002.

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.