There is provided an apparatus that determines the location of an impermissible tamper on an object, such as an impermissible attempt to gain access to a manhole system or an attempt to steal a work of art, includes a housing disposed adjacently to the object. A fiber optic cable runs through the housing. The object includes a portion that cooperates with internal components of the housing to maintain the fiber optic cable in a non-attenuated state. Upon the impermissible tamper, that portion of the object no longer cooperates with the internal components of the housing. An elastic force internal to the housing cooperates with more internal housing components to create a microbend to the fiber optic cable. Using known optical time domain reflectometer technology, the location of the microbend along the fiber optic cable is readily discerned.