A Knox Box is a small, wall-mounted

safe A safe (also called a strongbox or coffer) is a secure lockable box used for securing valuable objects against theft or fire. A safe is usually a hollow cuboid or cylinder, with one face being removable or hinged to form a door. The body and ...

that holds building keys for

fire departments A fire department (American English) or fire brigade (Commonwealth English), also known as a fire authority, fire district, fire and rescue, or fire service in some areas, is an organization that provides fire prevention and fire suppression se ...

emergency medical services Emergency medical services (EMS), also known as ambulance services or paramedic services, are emergency services that provide urgent pre-hospital treatment and stabilisation for serious illness and injuries and transport to definitive care. ...

, and sometimes police to retrieve in emergency situations. The term "Knox-Box" is a brand name for such products produced by the American company Knox Associates, which does business as The Knox Company. The Knox Box is part of a line of security-related products marketed as the Knox Rapid Access System. Local fire departments hold master keys to all Knox Boxes in their response area, enabling them to quickly enter buildings in their area without having to force entry or find individual keys held in deposit at the station. Sometimes the Knox Master Key is stored in a key retention device such as Sentralok or KeySecure. Knox Master Key retention devices provide accountability on access to the key. KeySecure records an

audit trail An audit trail (also called audit log) is a security-relevant chronological record, set of records, and/or destination and source of records that provide documentary evidence of the sequence of activities that have affected at any time a specific ...

of when the key is accessed while Sentralok requires a

dispatcher A dispatcher is a communications worker who receives and transmits information to coordinate operations of other personnel and vehicles carrying out a service. A number of organizations, including police and fire departments, emergency medical s ...

to release the key with

DTMF Dual-tone multi-frequency signaling (DTMF) is a telecommunication signaling system using the voice-frequency band over telephone lines between telephone equipment and other communications devices and switching centers. DTMF was first developed ...

tones. Both Sentralok and KeySecure are also branded products of the Knox Company. A Knox Box can also cut fire losses for building owners since firefighters can enter buildings without breaking doors or windows. It can also reduce the potential of a firefighter being injured forcing entry. The disadvantage of the system is that it provides a single

point of failure Reliability engineering is a sub-discipline of systems engineering that emphasizes the ability of equipment to function without failure. Reliability describes the ability of a system or component to function under stated conditions for a specifie ...

for the security of many buildings. If the key to a district's Knox Box is stolen or copied, a thief can enter any building in the area that has a Knox Box. All Knox commercial boxes have a standard tamper switch which can be wired to the building's

fire alarm control panel A fire alarm control panel (FACP), fire alarm control unit (FACU), fire indicator panel (FIP), or simply fire alarm panel is the controlling component of a fire alarm system. The panel receives information from devices designed to detect and re ...

to sound a supervisory alert if the box is opened. The keys for Knox KeySecure are the same throughout a district (the extent of which depends on the district). At the February 2013

RSA Conference The RSA Conference is a series of IT security conferences. Approximately 45,000 people attend one of the conferences each year. It was founded in 1991 as a small cryptography conference. RSA conferences take place in the United States, Europe, Asia ...

, a researcher publicized a possible exploit, claiming that he had successfully ordered a box, disassembled it, and used the information from disassembling the lock cylinder to create his own master key.

References

External links

Knox Company website
Firefighting equipment Physical security Security technology {{Emergency-services-stub

See also

References

External links