Abstract: The oscillations which are generated during an attempted instrusion at a protected area or surface, for instance a vault wall or fence, are received at a sonic receiver and processed by an evaluation circuit such that only the oscillations emanating from an intrusion attempt trip an alarm, not however spurious oscillations from the surroundings. The received oscillations are mixed with a carrier frequency whose frequency periodically and continuously passes through a certain frequency range. The mixed signals are filtered in a narrow band frequency range, so that at the output, during each frequency through pass period, there appears the entire frequency spectrum of the received sonic oscillations in the evaluated frequency range. The filtered signals are integrated and the integrated signal, after a brief period of time, is reset as a frequency throughpass if no further signal appears.