The airy, open-plan office boasts all the amenities of a modern co-working space, from cappuccino and kombucha on tap to high-speed Wi-Fi. Then there are the bars on the air conditioning vents and the special anti-eavesdropping filters on the windows.
Outfitting an SCIF of their own would be prohibitively expensive for most small companies. Installing all the safeguards required in thethat governs their construction can double the cost of a building, says Greg Lindsey, an executive at Westway, which operates three such facilities and is readying several others.
The Crystal City, a Virginia-based business, also offers mobile SCIFs which can be as small as a phone booth or as big as a full-size shipping container. They can be customised to client specifications and shipped on flatbed trailers to conferences or project sites.: top secret, secret and confidential. They’re arranged according to the extent of damage that could be done to US national security if information at each level were released without authorisation.