Poole: Cyber-security company to sweep Brussels building for 'bugs'

Dorset-based Cyber Security company C3IA Solutions has been approached to deliver a major contract to ‘bug sweep’ an important building in Brussels. A team from the company will use state-of-the-art equipment to search for bugs and listening devices at the location, which can’t be identified for security reasons.

C3IA Solutions works across the Cyber Security sector and employs a team of experts in the increasingly busy field of Technical Surveillance Counter-Measures (TSCM).

Government and international companies have been using C3IA’s expertise for some time, and increasingly businesses are realising the benefit and need for extra security in this area.

With the easy availability of bugs and listening devices on the internet, commercial espionage has never been easier.

Ash Williams, technical security services engineer at C3IA Solutions, heads up the TSCM task in the Belgian capital. He was formally in the Royal Corps of Signals and worked in electronic warfare and signals intelligence.

He said: “This is an important contract for us and through our previous work our expertise is becoming well-known internationally. The building in Brussels is on multiple floors and we aim to have a team of four, three of whom are ex-military.

“We’ll take six suitcases full of equipment and will work at night checking every inch of the office space.

“It’s not as glamorous as it sounds; it’s not like James Bond. We’ll be crawling around in roof spaces and it’ll take some time.

“This type of technical security is just as important as physical security and we are being called in by more businesses now.

“Sometimes they only realise they’ve been bugged if information has got into the public domain, or if there’s been a specific incident.

“Companies will try and steal rivals’ intellectual property – we see it all the time.

“It’s important that if businesses do think they’ve been compromised they don’t call us from company telephones or from their own phone within the building because it would tip off any eavesdropper and bugs can be switched off, which makes them harder to find.

“We often work at night when the workforce has gone home and we investigate any anomalies.

“If we find something then we have processes in place, and the client advised of the finding; it is up to them then to engage with the authorities.

“It’s also important to note that technical surveillance counter-measures not only apply to hi-tech devices; pliers and screwdrivers are just as important as expensive sweep kit.”

C3IA Solutions is based in Poole and was one of the first companies to be certified by the government’s National Cyber Security Centre.