Vulnerability

Penetration Test: Infant Abduction System

March 5, 2017 | 1 min read
58bcc8448495d36c26deeed5 baby

One hospital asked, "Are our babies safe?"

Do you test your security systems?

At one point in my career, an inner city hospital asked the question, “how safe are the babies in the nursery?” They had recently built a new pediatric and birthing center and implemented an infant abduction system within the nursery.

The design of this security program was to prevent a kidnapping of one of the babies. The system had a bracelet which was placed on the leg or arm of the newborn baby. The system would lock the department doors through a magnetic lock in the event the bracelet:

  • Broke the circuit or was cut off
  • Lost signal to the primary receptor
  • Or if the bracelet crossed a specific boundary point

The scenario was a baby will be in a patient room. The staff was given the date the test would be administered. The assailant was an education female, with no security background or training. She was not given any special privileges to the facility or added information. Her goal was to kidnap the doll from the nursery and get out of the building and off campus.

The assailant conducted surveillance of the hospital for two weeks. She identified the exits, security systems, and her strategy.

Due to the sensitive nature of this post, I will not directly divulge how she stole the baby doll from the nursery, but she did make it out of the building and into a car that drove off campus with the doll. If you are a hospital administrator and would like to discuss this topic please contact me directly.

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