REAL LIFE NEWS: HOTEL LOCK VULNERABILITY LEADS TO THEFTS
by Hazed
Staying in a hotel in the near future? If so, you’d better not leave anything valuable in the room - at least not if the door locking system is provided by a firm called Onity.
During the summer, a hacker revealed a simple way to access the codes that allowed the doors to be unlocked. Now there’s been a rash of thefts from hotel rooms in Texas, thanks to a burglar who has used the technique. He’s been arrested but there are bound to be others out there.
Onity makes locks for hotel rooms all over the world, so the company is now in trouble. As one security expert said, they have a “big problem”.
The company has said: “Immediately following the hacker’s public presentation of illegal methods of breaking into hotel rooms, Onity engineers quickly developed both mechanical and technical solutions to address the issue.
“These solutions have been tested and validated by two independent security firms, and are available to customers worldwide. All requests for these solutions have already been fulfilled, or are in the process of being fulfilled.”
The hack involves using a hole in the lock to access the mechanism and read the code, so some hotels are simply gluing up the holes. That’s a cheaper solution than replacing the lock or upgrading the circuit board. Meanwhile insurance firms expect to be hit hard with claims as knowledge of this hack spreads among professional thieves.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20507908 and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20525550
