Onity rolling out safeguards against hotel keycard hacks, may fix some locks outright

Onity hotel door hack

Mozilla staffer Cody Brocious' discovery of a quick (if imperfect) hack for hotel door locks raised alarms at the prospect that thieves could slip into rooms moments after plugging in a rogue device. The keycard system's creator, Onity, suggested in August that any solutions beyond capping the data port would cost a fee, and there wasn't a definite roadmap in place. The firm has more lately been looking to make things right. Officially, it's planning to give every affected hotel the caps over the "next several weeks," free as promised. Forbes understands that Onity may be going the extra mile, however. Reportedly leaked memos from Hyatt, the InterContinental Hotels Group and Marriott have the lock firm charging $11 per door to ship boards with hack-resistant firmware, but refunding that price as soon as it receives old boards, effectively offering a permanent fix for free. Some hotels outside of North America may not have to take even that last step. The only gotcha is a supposed requirement that hotels agree locks aren't hack-proof -- in short, please don't sue us. We've reached out for confirmation of this more extensive solution, but any truth to it would put the threat of keycard system hacks on ice for at least awhile.

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Via: The Verge

Source: Forbes, Onity

Samsung Galaxy S III replaces check-in, keycard, TV remote and AC control in Olympic hotel

Kill Me

Samsung has turned the Galaxy S III into the ultimate hotel accessory in preparation for the Olympics. It's equipped 40 rooms in London's Stratford Holiday Inn to use the official smartphone of 2012 to check in and out, order room service, unlock doors and control the TV without moving. VIPs staying at the hotel for the games season will get first dibs on the technology that'll let them call up a snack whilst tweeting -- just as long as Cody Brocious doesn't work out how to intercept it.

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Samsung Galaxy S III replaces check-in, keycard, TV remote and AC control in Olympic hotel originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Jul 2012 07:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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