Stripping and upgrading a chamber in two days
Upgrading a chamber with a minimum of downtime. How do we do that? In the middle of the photo is Edwin van der Ploeg, our international Service Engineer and supervisor of the chamber upgrade he is standing in.
Electronic devices create radiated electromagnetic emissions that can be intercepted and reconstructed into data. In a series of five posts, our specialists share trends and developments for 2025. This week, Technical Consultant Marc Le Roy and the future of Tempest Shielding and Testing.
Marc: “With global tensions between certain governments and NATO increasing, I foresee a growing demand for solutions against electronic eavesdropping. We distinct two kinds of threats: fixed locations that need protection, such as server rooms, and multi-media devices, such as mobile phones and laptops, that must be tempest-proofed and tested before they can be safely used.”
In 2018, the Dutch military intelligence service MIVD prevented a Russian secret service hacking attack on the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons’ Wi-Fi network in The Hague. Marc: “We have developed Tempest shielding solutions because IT servers need protection from such attacks. These solutions include a sluice gate of two RF doors that can’t be opened simultaneously to avoid over-the-air communication between the equipment that needs protection (inside) and the uncontrolled environment outside. Our test chambers to perform Tempest measurements are used to perform radiated emission measurements on modified off-the-shelf IT products and networking solutions to meet EU, NATO or bespoke standards for formal compliance such as SDIP standards. Such Tempest-proof products ensure that the confidential information of government and military organisations cannot be intercepted by electronic eavesdropping.”
What is your advice for 2025? Marc: “Countries in NATO that have not yet organised their security according to the SDIP standards should pick it up in 2025 and support their industry of device-protection manufacturers and facilitate their own Tempest test chambers. In parallel, government and military organisations are also advised to include Tempest security in their risk assessments and take action to protect their data centres, crypto chambers and meeting rooms. We can help in this as supply is limited and secrecy is mandatory.”
Government and military organisations within NATO requiring assistance with Tempest protection testing can contact Marc Le Roy, Uliana Trucchi, Vincent van de Vrie, or Hanneke Mertens – van Veen for a Comtest Engineering-accredited solution.