Honeybadger Solutions · TSCM / Counter-Surveillance
Is Your Office Bugged?
Check every statement that’s true for you. These are the warning signs that justify a professional bug sweep.
or call 602-725-2818 · confidential · professional detection equipment
This self-audit is an awareness tool, not a detection service — it cannot find a device and a low score is not an all-clear. If you have genuine reason to believe you’re being monitored, do not discuss it in the suspected area (assume it’s compromised) and contact a TSCM professional from a safe location. Honeybadger Solutions LLC.
What the warning signs above actually mean
People arrive at this page for one of two reasons. Either something specific has happened that they cannot explain, or a general unease has built up over weeks. Both are worth taking seriously, but they call for different responses, and it helps to understand what each of the indicators in the checklist is really telling you.
Information leaving the room
This is the strongest single indicator, and it is the one that brings most clients to us. A competitor prices against a figure only four people knew. Opposing counsel raises a point discussed once, in a room, off the record. A negotiating position appears to have been anticipated. When confidential information demonstrably moves and there is no obvious human explanation, a technical one becomes worth ruling out.
Be rigorous about the human explanation first, though. In our casework, more confidential information leaks through people, unsecured email, shared calendars and forwarded documents than through hidden microphones. A sweep that finds nothing is not a wasted sweep — it narrows the problem to where it actually is.
Physical signs
Items moved slightly. A ceiling tile out of alignment. Fresh dust or debris beneath a smoke detector or vent. A wall plate that sits marginally proud, or screws with fresh tool marks. An unfamiliar device on a power strip. A vehicle or premises entered with no sign of forced entry and nothing taken.
Nothing taken is the detail people underweight. A burglary where nothing is missing is not a failed burglary — it is frequently a successful installation.
Electronic symptoms
Interference on speakerphones, unexplained audio artefacts, a phone that runs hot or drains unusually fast, or unfamiliar devices appearing on the network. Treat these as weak signals on their own — modern electronics produce plenty of benign noise, and most hot phones are just old phones. They matter when they cluster with the other categories.
Circumstance
The honest predictor is not a symptom at all, it is a situation. Contested divorces, custody disputes, partnership breakups, litigation, executive transitions, hostile acquisitions and terminated employees with access — these are when devices actually appear. If you are in one of those situations and something feels wrong, the base rate is on your side, not against you.
What a professional sweep actually involves
A credible TSCM sweep is not someone walking a room with a handheld detector. It has four components, and a provider who omits any of them is not doing the job.
Radio-frequency analysis. A spectrum analyser is used to map the radio environment across a wide frequency range, then identify and account for every signal in it. The skill is not finding signals — every modern building is full of them — it is separating the Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular, DECT and broadcast traffic from something that should not be there. That requires knowing what a normal baseline looks like and recognising the signature of a transmitter that bursts, hops frequency, or only activates when it hears sound.
Physical inspection. The unglamorous majority of the work. Outlets, switch plates, smoke detectors, thermostats, clocks, lamps, air vents, furniture, picture frames, ceiling voids, and anything with an unobstructed view of a desk, a door or a bed. Many devices transmit nothing at all and record to internal storage — no RF equipment on earth will find those. Only a methodical physical search will.
Optical and thermal checks. Lens detection finds camera optics by reflection. Thermal imaging finds devices drawing power inside walls, fixtures and furniture that look undisturbed.
Telecommunications and network inspection. Phone lines, structured cabling, network hardware and anything that has been added to the infrastructure. In commercial settings this is increasingly where the real exposure sits — not a bug in a lamp, but software on a device or an unauthorised addition to the network.
What equipment finds, and what it cannot
This is where most consumer expectations break, so it is worth being blunt. RF detection finds devices that are actively transmitting at the moment you sweep. It will not find a recorder that stores to internal memory and is collected later. It will not reliably find a device that transmits for four seconds once an hour. It will not find a device that is currently switched off. And it will not find something wired into the building that looks exactly like it belongs.
That is why a sweep is a process rather than a gadget, and why a clean handheld scan should not be mistaken for an all-clear.
If you think you have found something, stop
Do not touch it. Do not photograph it with the phone you carry into that room every day. Do not tell colleagues in the room. Do not remove it.
A device left in place is evidence — it has fingerprints, a serial number, a purchase trail, and it tells us where it transmits to. A device in your pocket is an anecdote, and one you have now contaminated. If it is transmitting, the person on the other end will also learn the moment you find it, which is information you may prefer to control.
Leave the room. Call from a different phone, from a different location. That call is free and it costs you nothing to be wrong.
The legal position in Arizona
Arizona is a one-party consent state for recording conversations, meaning a participant may lawfully record a conversation they are part of. Recording a conversation you are not part of is a different matter and is generally unlawful. Placing a device in a space where someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy — a home, a bedroom, a bathroom, a private office — carries serious exposure, and in the right circumstances that is a felony rather than a civil matter.
Two practical consequences follow. First, if you are the person who has been recorded, you may have both a criminal complaint and a civil claim, and the quality of the evidence matters enormously to both. Second, if you are considering placing a device yourself — in a shared home, a vehicle you co-own, or a workplace — get legal advice before you do, not after. We decline that work, and we have testified against people who did not take that advice.
What a sweep costs and what you get
Pricing depends on the size of the area, the number of rooms, the complexity of the infrastructure and whether the findings need to support legal proceedings. A single executive office is a different job from a floor of a building or a residence.
What you should receive regardless: a written report describing what was examined, what equipment was used, what was found, and what was not found. That last part matters. A report that says only “nothing found” is worth very little. A report that documents scope and method is something you can rely on, show to counsel, or hand to an insurer.
For matters heading toward litigation, tell us before the sweep rather than after. Chain of custody and documentation requirements change how the work is performed, and they cannot be applied retrospectively.
Related reading
Before you call, have these ready
The consultation is far more productive if you can answer four things. What specifically happened, and when — dates matter more than impressions. Who has legitimate access to the space, including cleaners, contractors, landlords and building management. What changed recently: a termination, a filing, a renovation, a new device, a visitor. And what the space is used for, because a room where privileged legal discussion happens is treated differently from a general office.
Write it down before you call. People consistently remember the most important detail fifteen minutes into a conversation, and the timeline is usually what points at the answer.
Three misconceptions worth clearing up
“A sweep proves nobody is listening.” It proves nothing was present and detectable at the time and in the areas examined. That is genuinely valuable, and it is not the same claim. Anyone promising certainty is overselling.
“If they were listening, my phone would act strange.” Modern surveillance software is written specifically to avoid that. Battery drain and heat are weak indicators at best, and on older hardware they mean nothing at all.
“I will just buy a detector.” A competent detector is a reasonable purchase for travel and routine checks, and we sell them. It is not a substitute for a sweep when something has actually happened, for the reasons set out above — the devices that matter most in real cases are frequently the ones a handheld cannot see.