Boardroom Electronic Audit

Why boardrooms are targeted

A boardroom compresses everything an adversary wants into a predictable time and place. Meeting schedules are known to dozens of people, directors, assistants, facilities staff, caterers, AV contractors. The room stands empty and accessible for days between meetings. And the payoff for listening is exceptional: transaction terms before announcement, litigation strategy before filing, dissent among directors before a vote.

Placing one takes minutes. A device the size of a coin, concealed in a power accessory or above a ceiling tile during a routine maintenance visit, will capture every session until someone looks for it. Most organisations never look.

What the audit covers

• Pre-meeting inspection, full TSCM examination of the boardroom, breakout rooms, adjoining offices and service voids, completed as close to the meeting as practicable.
• Conference system examination, video-conferencing endpoints, room microphones, wireless presentation systems and telephony inspected for compromise, auto-answer states and misconfiguration. These systems are the most common leak path we find in modern boardrooms.
• Room lock-down, the inspected space is sealed or kept under control between inspection and meeting, so assurance cannot be undone by a final "maintenance visit".
• In-conference monitoring, where warranted, consultants maintain technical monitoring nearby while the meeting runs, detecting any device activated only once discussion begins.
• Off-site venues, hotel function rooms, external counsel's offices, AGM venues and deal-signing locations inspected before your team arrives.

The governance case

For listed companies, board-level information is inside information: its uncontrolled escape is a regulatory event, not only a commercial one. Audit committees increasingly treat periodic electronic audits as a standing control, documented alongside other assurance activities. A dated, methodical inspection report is evidence of diligence, the difference between "we had no reason to believe" and "we took reasonable steps".

Many clients pair event-driven audits with a Continuous Monitoring Programme, so that assurance before exceptional meetings rests on a baseline of scheduled inspection.