Extremists switch to new targets

TERRORISTS are hunting for fresh targets because there are fewer crowds amid the coronavirus pandemic.

New MI5 chief Ken McCallum warned that ‘online living’ had meant more opportunities for cyber hackers seeking to exploit the crisis.

He said the Security Service had been ‘rapidly adapting’ how it works to keep the country safe during the outbreak where there have been ‘near-empty streets’.

In a virtual speech, he said: ‘The big shifts in everyone’s lives – reduced travel, more online, and the rest – mean shifts in how our adversaries are operating. Fewer crowds mean terrorists look at different targets – online living means more opportunities for cyber hackers, and so on.

‘Equally, 2020 has demanded shifts in how MI5 itself has to operate... common sense will tell you that covert surveillance is not straightforward on near-empty streets.’

He also told how the agency had started using artificial intelligence to wade through evidence and spot images of ‘guns and Islamic State flags’. Mr McCallum also told how Britain’s spies had been helping to tackle coronavirus in a number of ways.

He said: ‘We’ve sought where we can to help on Covid itself – advising on the safe construction of Nightingale hospitals, repurposing research originally done on toxic chemicals to help understand how Covid in droplets might disperse in certain environments [and] offering our skills in data analytics and modelling.’

He said much of the help simply involved allowing medically-qualified MI5 officers ‘to step away from their duties and directly support our NHS’.