Travelers should be careful of connecting to free hotel Wi-Fi spots as a router commonly used in most hotels has a large flaw that allows hackers to compromise connected devices.
The research team from security vendor Cylance found the vulnerability in the InnGate Wi-Fi router in hotels. More than 270 of the ANTLabs-made routers in 29 different countries are affected by the exploit.
Cylance refuses to name the hotels which were using the vulnerable Wi-Fi router, according to Network World.
The research team named as SPEAR (Sophisticated Penetration Exploitation and Research) believes that revealing the affected hotels could result in the abuse of the said exploit.
SPEAR said that all kinds of hotels used the Inngate Wi-Fi router, ranging from cheap ones up to five-star hotels.
Customers were not the only ones at risk of being compromised by hackers. Justine Clarke from SPEAR said that the Wi-Fi router's vulnerability can lead hackers to restricted hotel networks, where they can gather private information such as guests' billing information, according to Wired.
Such attacks could also be used to gain access to a guest room with a key lock system. Hackers can enter the compromised hotel Wi-Fi network and gain access to its mainframe to open a door.
One famous example of a compromised hotel network is the high-profile assassination of a Hamas official who stayed in Dubai hotel in 2011. The authorities believe that the assassins were able to reprogram the electronic lock on the official's hotel room.
"Given the level of access that this vulnerability offers to attackers, there is seemingly no limit to what they could do," said the SPEAR team.