Assessment & Inspection Methodology
A professional TSCM engagement is a staged, documented process — not a walk-through with a blinking gadget. This is the methodology behind our assessments and the inspections they prescribe, published so you can hold any provider to it.
The six stages
Stage 1
Threat and scope definition
Every engagement starts with the information, not the equipment: what is discussed, where, and who plausibly wants it. This stage fixes the spaces in scope, the threat model, the discretion requirements, and the cover story for on-site work. Output: an agreed scope with a fixed price.
Stage 2
Physical search
Systematic, fingertip-level inspection of the scoped spaces: furniture, fixtures, ceiling and floor voids, power and data outlets, conferencing hardware, gifts and ornaments. Most finds in the industry are physical finds. Trained hands and method beat any single instrument.
Stage 3
Radio-frequency spectrum analysis
Wideband spectrum capture and analysis across the transmission ranges used by commercial and improvised devices, compared against a baseline of the local RF environment, after hours where the environment allows. Burst, frequency-hopping and standby transmitters are specifically hunted.
Stage 4
Electronic and infrastructure inspection
Non-linear junction detection to find semiconductor electronics whether powered or dormant; thermal imaging for powered devices in walls and fixtures; inspection of telephony, network points, conferencing systems and cabling for taps, implants and misconfiguration.
Stage 5
Findings, risk and report
Every anomaly is resolved — identified, cleared, or escalated. The written report records scope, method, equipment classes, findings with risk language a committee can use, and recommendations in priority order. A clean report is itself an asset: it bounds your exposure window with a date.
Stage 6
Remediation and re-inspection
Where findings require change — device removal, hardware replacement, procedural fixes — remediation is verified by re-inspection, and the record is closed. On a find, the protocol in your TSCM policy governs evidence preservation, legal escalation and notification analysis.
A note on equipment honesty
Professional inspection equipment — spectrum analysis, non-linear junction detection, thermal imaging — represents a six-figure investment, which is why it is the sharpest single question to ask any provider. But equipment does not conduct the survey; method does. A disciplined physical search by trained operators finds what instruments miss, and an instrument in untrained hands finds nothing at all.
Standards this maps to
The staged approach aligns with the expectations behind NIST SP 800-53 RA-6 (technical surveillance countermeasures surveys by qualified personnel), the physical control families of ISO/IEC 27001:2022 Annex A section 7, and the all-hazards physical environment language of NIS2 Article 21.
Scope an assessment
A short conversation establishes scope and a fixed price. Assessments run across the US, UK and Europe.