TEMPEST (Telecommunications Electronics Material Protected from Emanating Spurious Transmissions) is a an attack technique for observing electronic devices by monitoring radio signals that they unintentionally give off. TEMPEST was developed during the cold war, and was known to be used by the USA to spy on the Soviet Union.

Due to the kind of information possible to be captured by TEMPEST attacks, the NSA developed a set of standards designed to test equipment used by the USA and other NATO countries, and also how to use the techniques to spy on others.

See Also

TEMPEST is an example of a side channel attack.

 

Last updated: 16 October 2017