Millions of hotel rooms could be susceptible to theft
By A.W. | WASHINGTON, DC
WHEN a hacker gets hacked, hackers hack back. That is exactly what an attendee at a hacking conference in Berlin in 2003 did when the keycard-operated lock of his hotel room got hacked. On returning to his hotel room, he found that his laptop had been stolen, but there was no evidence of forced entry. So how did the thief get into the room? Two of his colleagues spent more than a decade trying to answer that question. Now they have succeeded—and in the process they have exposed a security vulnerability that leaves millions of hotel rooms susceptible to theft.
