Open up your Wi-Fi-enabled laptop outside and you’ll immediately see in your network management pane a list of wireless systems. Most, if not all, of them are broadcasting from inside a building.
Office buildings may have hundreds of signals spilling out the walls and windows. Add to this people using mobile phones, electronic payment systems and security signals and you have a treasure trove of information literally in the air.
That’s just what some savvy cyber thieves knew when in 2007 they stole the credit card information of more than 45 million customers of TJX Cos., the parent company of Marshalls, T.J. Maxx, HomeGoods and other stores. The information was literally taken out of thin air.
Investigators believe hackers sitting outside a Marshall’s used a telescope-shaped antenna to grab information leaking out from windows from the store’s wireless data system communications, including hand-held price-checking devices, cash registers and the store’s computers.
Retailers and office complexes are trying to make their environments more appealing by letting in more light, but in doing so they’re also allowing more information to flow through the glass. Government officials have known about the problem of eavesdropping on data, phone conversations or even plain talk between people in an office for decades. This is why they have had a wide range of systems and products developed and installed in government offices to prevent information from leaking out.
Special window film is one of the solutions developed to prevent information from falling into the wrong hands. Specific window films were developed for sensitive federal government facilities to prevent secret data from being copied through the windows of buildings. These window films can help to confine RF (radio frequency), IR (infrared), and optical bandwidth transmissions across and from wireless networks, laptops, cell phones, computer monitors, laser microphones and infrared communication systems within a protected space.
But it’s not just the wireless data that can present a tempting target; private conversations between people or on a phone can also be eavesdropped or intercepted using readily available receivers. Laser microphones allow the user to pick up voice data through a window. Signal- and voice-blocking window films can be visibly clear so it’s not obvious they are in place. Serious wireless product developers have been shielding rooms for years to provide a “quiet” chamber for testing wireless products in the absence of external RF signals. Combined with the use of special RF shielding paint and other steps, window film offers an attractive way for protecting larger rooms and even buildings.
The application of this type of shielding gives your building a “protective skin” that offers another layer of security on top of existing security mechanisms, such as encryption and authentication. In addition, window film has many others benefits such as UV reduction by as much as 99 percent; keeping glass together when it has been impacted by an object or a blast wave from an explosion; energy savings, especially for buildings that require cooling much of the year; and glare reduction so the interior environment is generally more comfortable and occupants can take advantage of natural light.
Are you interested in protecting your company’s secrets with window film? Visit the International Window Film Association‘s website or email the organization for more information.