Ex MI5 chief gets her laptop stolen at airport

The former Director-General of UK’s internal security service MI5 has had her laptop stolen at London’s Heathrow airport on Tuesday.

Dame Stella Rimington, who headed the agency from 1992 to 1996, has since then become a well-known spy thriller author. According to the report, he laptop contained research for her next book, but it could have also contained sensitive information such as contact details of her former colleagues.

“Dame Stella seems to have forgotten the tricks of her tradecraft since leaving MI5,” commented a source for The Sun. “CCTV shows the laptop in the upper compartment of her trolley as she left the terminal building at Heathrow last week. It’s possible it was taken while her back was turned, but it seems more likely that she left the computer on the trolley and somebody took it after she was driven away.”

The theft was reported to the Metropolitan Police’s SO15 Counter-Terrorism Command.

It is unknown whether the information on the laptop was encrypted or at least password protected.

The possibility that the thief was only after a piece of hardware that can be sold immediately and was unaware who the owner of the laptop is high. Still, who knows where the machine might end up.