The MI5's head of hostile states counterintelligence has called for the 100-year-old Official Secrets Act to be brought up to date and for the British public to play their part in an unpredictable storm of threats.
The senior intelligence officer, who can only be publicly identified by her title, Director K, said there is 'increasingly damaging activity' being put towards the UK by hostile states, including China and Russia.
She has warned that British citizens should be more vigilant as threats against the UK are becoming more and more diverse, in the forms of state-backed cyber hackers, electoral interference and more.
Thames House, MI5's Headquarters, where Director K gave an extremely rare interview to warn that British citizens must be more vigilant as threats against the UK are becoming more and more diverse
Other than the director general Ken McCallum, Director K's boss, nobody as senior that the spy, who is in her 40's, has ever given a media interview before.
And it is to help it become more wider known that threats against the UK are much more all encompassing.
Director K's job involves keeping Britain safe from assassins, spies and protecting the country's intellectual property.
Britain is said to be under threat from malign interference which ranges from the theft of intellectual property to crass assassination plots.
This includes the Russian spy who stole the blueprint for the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid vaccine, and the attempt to kill a Russian double agent with Novichok nerve agent in Salisbury by Vladmir Putin.
Britain is said to be under threat from malign interference which ranges from the theft of intellectual property to crass assassination plots, including the Russian spy who stole the blueprint for the Oxford AstraZeneca Covid vaccine. Pictured is the Thames House Arch at MI5 HQ, which was lit up purple to celebrate International Day for Persons with Disabilities
