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Open Millions of Hotel Rooms With Arduino

MrSeb writes with an excerpt from Extreme Tech about a presentation at Black Hat: "Bad news: With an Arduino microcontroller and a little bit of programming, it's possible for a hacker to gain instant, untraceable access to millions of key card-protected hotel rooms. This hack was demonstrated by Cody Brocious, a Mozilla software developer, at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas. At risk are four million hotel rooms secured by Onity programmable key card locks. According to Brocious, who didn't disclose the hack to Onity before going public, there is no easy fix: There isn't a firmware upgrade — if hotels want to secure their guests, every single lock will have to be changed. I wish I could say that Brocious spent months on this hack, painstakingly reverse-engineering the Onity lock protocol, but the truth — as always, it seems — is far more depressing. 'With how stupidly simple this is, it wouldn't surprise me if a thousand other people have found this same vulnerability and sold it to other governments,' says Brocious. 'An intern at the NSA could find this in five minutes.'"

13 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. Bad news for you maybe by crazyjj · · Score: 5, Funny

    Great news for the budget-minded vacationer looking for a hotel bargain.

    --
    What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
  2. Re:Lock the door when inside by Iniamyen · · Score: 5, Funny

    Don't fret, most hotel rooms have safes secured by Onity programmable key card locks.

  3. swedish supermodels beware by tekrat · · Score: 5, Funny

    Geeks now have the ability to get into your hotel room while changing into your bikini...

    But why would a geek be changing into your bikini?

    --
    If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
    1. Re:swedish supermodels beware by Chas · · Score: 3, Funny

      Basically it's the perfect armor.

      Some 500 pound guy in a thong is so horrific that you simply can't look at it long enough to aim and shoot.

      That and the whole Cthulu-esque "I stared into madness and madness stared back" aspect.

      --


      Chas - The one, the only.
      THANK GOD!!!
  4. So they're called by oldmac31310 · · Score: 5, Funny

    pwnity now...

    --
    http://www.acetonestudio.com
  5. Re:Image by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    How is your lawn coming along granddad?

  6. Re:Lock the door when inside by specific · · Score: 4, Funny

    I've never hacked an Onity programmable key-card lock, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

    --
    If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
  7. Re:Lock the door when inside by Critical+Facilities · · Score: 4, Funny

    the chain lock that's separate from the key card lock

    Or according to Jon Stewart - "I have a chain lock on my door that says to criminals 'you're not getting in here......unless you push....kind of hard....with your hand'."

  8. Re:I wouldn't have either by TheCarp · · Score: 4, Funny

    That is, unless he is planning to use the Basic Instinct Defense "What, do you think I am stupid enough to publish details of how a murder could be committed, by anyone, using these devices, and then do it myself?"

    Though, if he tries it, I hope he remembers, the short white dress and no underwear is key to making it work.

    --
    "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
  9. Re:As usual however by gblackwo · · Score: 4, Funny

    You have until the end of the day to gather your things and turn in your geek card.

  10. Re:Well, that's it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Bad news: With an Arduino microcontroller and a little bit of programming, it's possible for a hacker to gain instant, untraceable access to millions of key card-protected hotel rooms.

    Well, that's it! There's only one thing we can do... outlaw Arduinos

    Not a complete solution, I'm sure there are other devices that could be used. To solve the problem completely we'll have to outlaw programming.

  11. Re:Lock the door when inside by courteaudotbiz · · Score: 3, Funny

    Why call them safes then? Let's call them UnSafes!

  12. Re:Lock the door when inside by Pope · · Score: 3, Funny

    We had a problem with a hotel safe once. When the tech guy came he popped the plastic keypad off to expose a serial port then hooked up his iPhone to it and opened the door. I wonder how secure that is...

    Lies! iPhones and iPads are for content consumption only, and cannot possibly used for real work.

    --
    It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.