Hotel Hackers: Protect Yourself from Hotel Network Hacking

You travel often for business, staying in hotels–but your information is at risk from hotel hacking. Hackers lurking on hotel Wi-Fi can compromise your sensitive data, and you need a plan to stay protected. Today, we review the best VPNs to encrypt your hotel Internet connection and block out third-party snooping and hotel hacking attempts.

Criminals are after corporate data and they’ll stop at nothing to get it. After all, data has become the main asset of many organizations. So, they’ve set up bases in hotels in order to gain access to corporate data through the devices that employees carry when travelling for business. If you’re travelling and using your devices to connect to your corporate network from your hotel room, make no mistake — you are the target of hotel hacking. Fortunately, there’s something you can do about it.

We’ll start off our journey by having an in-depth look at what hotel hacking is. You’ll see how it is common and easy to exploit the flaws of networks and computers to gain access to corporate networks. And once a hacker has gained access to a corporate network, there’s no limit to the damage they can do. We’ll also see how the ubiquitous WiFi that we all come to expect and take for granted in our hotel rooms has made hotel hacking even easier for criminals. Next, we’ll get to protecting against hotel hackers and how Virtual Private Networks can help with that, followed by a brief review of some of the best VPN services you can use for that purpose. Finally,

Hotel hacking–What is it and how is it done?

When you travel and stay in hotels, you can unknowingly facilitate access to your work network by ill-intentioned individuals or organizations. A leading category of cyber attack involves hackers getting into company networks from where they can steal information and alter documents. This type of attack, called Advanced Persistent Threats (APT), requires an entry point, and unsuspecting employees with company computers and smartphones give these hotel hacking groups the access point that they need.

Hotels are convenient places for APT hackers because they’ll find a never-ending flow of computers and other devices with corporate network access from all over the world. Even vacation hotels are a good spot for hotel hacking into company networks. This is due to the bad habit many of us have of always wanting to stay in touch with the office. The device that will give hackers the access they seek doesn’t need to belong to the company — it just needs to be connecting to the corporate network.

If your business sends staff abroad for meetings, sales pitches, training, or consultancy, you need to make sure all of the devices that they will potentially use to access the network are protected against infiltration.

Using WiFi for hotel hacking

A key method of access used by intruders is provided by hotel WiFi systems. A hacker can easily create a fake WiFi hot spot to attract hotel guests to connect to it. Many of the visitors may unsuspectingly carry out their usual activities while connected to the data-gathering hacker’s hot spot, potentially exposing your corporate network access credentials and effectively granting them access to the corporate network.

Hotel hacking has evolved rapidly, and attackers no longer need to get into your room to get onto your computer. Another simple method they can use is to tell you to download new software when you first connect to the hotel network. This is an evolved form of the spy-technician scam of previous years. Today, keystroke logging and controller programs get downloaded either as necessary connection software or masqueraded as updates for software that is already present on the computer.

Cybersecurity provider, Kaspersky Labs, reported in 2014 on their discovery of a hacking group from South Korea, called Darkhotel, which specialized in getting spyware onto the computers of guests in hotels. The group had operations enabling them to install spyware remotely over WiFi networks in several hotels in North and South Korea, Japan, Bangladesh, Thailand, India, Russia, Mozambique, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Ireland, Italy, and Germany. The group uses a “man in the middle” method to get access to the computers of hotel guests. This type of hotel hacking scam is usually achieved by creating a fake WiFi hot spot that passes through all traffic onto the genuine hotel network, but monitors outbound traffic and injects its own downloads of self-installing spyware.

Beyond fake hotspots and malicious downloads, the everyday structure of hotel Wi-Fi creates several additional risks that most guests never think about. Understanding these weaknesses is the first step to protecting yourself.

Open networks with captive portals. Most hotel networks ask you to accept terms or enter a room number before granting access. That login page is served over an unencrypted connection, meaning anything you type or submit at that stage — before your VPN tunnel is active — can be intercepted. The portal itself can also be spoofed to harvest credentials.

Lack of client isolation. Many hotel Wi-Fi systems do not separate guests from one another on the network. Without client isolation, every device on the same access point can potentially see and probe the other devices connected to it. A guest in the next room could scan for open file shares on your laptop just as easily as a dedicated attacker.

Devices on the same broadcast domain. Related to the above, when client isolation is absent, devices sit in the same broadcast domain. This makes it straightforward for an attacker to run ARP poisoning or other man-in-the-middle techniques to intercept traffic flowing between your device and the router.

Plaintext DNS and HTTP leaks before the VPN activates. There is a brief window between the moment your device connects to the hotel network and the moment your VPN tunnel is fully established. During that window, DNS queries and any unencrypted HTTP requests travel in the open. A passive observer on the network — or the hotel’s own infrastructure — can log which sites you are trying to reach.

Third-party Wi-Fi providers that harvest metadata. Many hotels outsource their Wi-Fi to third-party management platforms. These providers may log connection metadata — which devices connected, when, for how long, and which domains were queried — under their own privacy policies, which are rarely the hotel’s responsibility to disclose. That data can be sold, subpoenaed, or breached independently of anything the hotel itself does.

To reduce your exposure before your VPN tunnel is even active, follow this practical checklist every time you check in:

• Confirm the exact SSID with the front desk. Ask staff to write down the precise network name. Attackers often broadcast a network with a nearly identical name to lure guests onto a rogue hotspot.
• Disable auto-join for hotel networks. Set your device to require manual approval before joining any new network, so it cannot silently reconnect to a spoofed hotspot later.
• Turn off file sharing, AirDrop, and network discovery. On Windows, set the network type to Public and disable network discovery and file sharing in the advanced sharing settings. On macOS, disable AirDrop and turn off file sharing in System Settings before connecting.
• Avoid installing hotel apps or certificates unless absolutely necessary. Some hotels prompt guests to install a mobile app or a Wi-Fi certificate to connect. A certificate installed by a third party can allow that party to decrypt your HTTPS traffic. If the certificate is not from a trusted root authority you recognise, do not install it.
• Forget the network after checkout. Remove the hotel Wi-Fi from your saved networks so your device cannot auto-join that SSID — or a clone of it — in the future.

Hotel booking scams and breached reservation data

Not every hotel hacking threat waits for you to arrive at the property. A growing category of attack targets travellers before they ever connect to hotel Wi-Fi, exploiting reservation data that has already been stolen or leaked from booking platforms, loyalty programmes, and hotel management systems.

When attackers obtain booking details — your name, stay dates, property name, and loyalty number — they can craft highly convincing phishing messages. An email or SMS that references your actual upcoming stay, the correct hotel, and the right check-in date is far more persuasive than a generic scam. Common lures include a “confirm your payment method” request, a message warning that “your reservation is at risk,” or a fake pre-arrival card verification form. Because the details are accurate, many travellers trust the message without question.

This is not a theoretical risk. Reservation platform breaches have exposed names, email addresses, phone numbers, passport numbers, payment card details, and loyalty account information for hundreds of millions of guests across major hotel groups and online travel agencies. Attackers use that data not only to send phishing messages but also to access loyalty accounts directly and drain points balances or book fraudulent stays.

To protect yourself from booking-related hotel hacking:

• Only pay through the official hotel or OTA site or app. Always navigate directly to the hotel chain’s website or the booking platform you originally used. Never click a payment link sent via email or SMS, even if the message appears to know your booking details.
• Never enter card details through an email link. Legitimate hotels and booking platforms do not ask you to re-enter full payment details by clicking an emailed link. If you receive such a request, treat it as fraudulent until proven otherwise.
• Verify payment requests by calling the hotel directly. If you receive a message asking you to confirm or update payment information, hang up or close the message and call the hotel using a phone number you find independently — from the chain’s official website, not the one provided in the message.
• Enable MFA on your booking and loyalty accounts. Accounts on platforms such as Booking.com, Marriott Bonvoy, and Hilton Honors are valuable targets. Adding multi-factor authentication means that stolen credentials alone are not enough to take over your account.
• Treat pre-arrival card verification requests as suspicious. Some legitimate hotels do perform pre-authorisations, but any request that arrives via email or messaging and asks you to click a link or provide full card details should be confirmed directly with the property before you act on it.

Protecting yourself from hotel hacking

Security experts have one consistent piece of advice for protecting against hotel hacking: when you travel to “risky regions” such as China, Russia, the Baltic States, and even South America, you should leave your gadgets at home. Hackers can sneak app and operating system updates onto your phone and laptop while you walk around or sleep.

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Even if you are unlikely to connect to the office network, when you get back, Trojans and spyware can get carried back home with you on your smartphone. Once you arrive back and call a friend, you may just have launched a computer virus epidemic that will cripple hospital machinery all over your country and put lives at risk.

If you really have to take your computerized devices with you, install extra security and privacy software to protect them. Remember that you are particularly vulnerable in your hotel because that’s where foreign secret service operatives and state-sponsored hackers have set up hotel hacking intrusion procedures.

The strongest protection you can get is one step up from security — this is privacy. Virtual private networks not only secure the contents of your connections, they even protect all of the behind-the-scenes messages that computers and smartphones use to create connections. The technology that underpins networks and the internet is complicated and not many people know about it. However, hackers in North Korea, China, and Russia receive government funds which give them large budgets to invest in research. Foreign hacker corporations are constantly finding new ways to get into company networks, steal data, shut down utilities, and cause havoc. So, installing a VPN before you go away is not only a precaution against hotel hacking — it’s your patriotic duty. For even more comprehensive protection, consider setting up VPN routers for home to secure all your devices automatically before you travel.

READ ALSO: Best VPN for Small Businesses

How VPNs keep you safe from hotel hacking

A VPN can help you by building a tunnel between your computer or other device and the VPN server. All data in and out of your device is forced to go through the tunnel where strong encryption makes it undecipherable. Hackers won’t see what you’re doing or where you’re going, and will most often simply switch to trying to hack a different guest.

So, you need to make sure that you install a VPN on your laptop and all your connected devices before you check into a hotel. If you travel with a tablet, these secure iPad VPN picks are worth a look, and if you need to set up VPN on iPhone before your trip, we’ve got that covered too. All of the VPNs reviewed below work well to protect your privacy from hotel hacking. Make sure you set up your VPN to provide maximum coverage. Most VPNs have a settings page right within the client app. Look for a setting that causes the VPN to connect as soon as the computer starts up. Also, look for a setting called “kill switch” that will block all traffic should the tunnel ever go down unexpectedly, and another one that sets up automatic WiFi protection. Turn them all on. Finally, turn on all malware and tracker blocking options that your software provides.

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These settings should prevent hotel hacking attempts from getting into your computer by turning it on remotely. The VPN will block all internet access as soon as the computer boots up and cut off a significant avenue of attack. Similarly, if for some reason the VPN connection gets dropped, no further internet access is possible until the VPN is re-engaged.

It is important to be clear about what a VPN does and does not protect you from. A VPN encrypts your traffic after the tunnel is established, which is a meaningful and important layer of defence. However, it is not a complete solution on its own. Captive-portal login pages — the screens you see before the VPN connects — can still be risky. Booking and payment phishing attacks can still succeed regardless of whether you are using a VPN, because they target you through email or messaging rather than by intercepting your network traffic. Hotel apps can still request invasive device permissions that have nothing to do with your VPN tunnel. And compromised hotel systems — smart locks, in-room TVs, IoT devices on the property network — are entirely outside the scope of what a VPN can address.

For genuine protection against hotel hacking, treat a VPN as one important layer within a broader approach. Pair it with HTTPS-only browsing mode enabled in your browser, so that unencrypted HTTP connections are blocked by default. Enable multi-factor authentication on your email, corporate accounts, and booking platform accounts so that stolen passwords alone cannot grant access. For especially sensitive logins — banking, corporate VPN portals, payroll — consider switching to your phone’s personal hotspot instead of the hotel network entirely, bypassing the shared infrastructure altogether. And if you receive any payment request or account verification message that claims to be from your hotel or a booking platform, manually verify it by calling the hotel directly before taking any action.

Finally, here are a few more features you should look for when selecting a VPN provider to defend against hotel hacking. It should have no data throughput or usage time limits. You want to be able to connect for an unlimited amount of time and transfer as much data as you need. Your provider should, of course, offer strong security like all of those on our list do. They should also offer WiFi protection since this is now the primary intrusion method used in hotel hacking. And finally, they should let you protect all of your devices under a single account. If you’re still comparing options, our VPN deal roundup can help you find a strong provider at a better price. For additional security, consider using encrypted email on mobile and PC to ensure your communications remain private even if hackers intercept your connection. If you frequently browse on the go, exploring Chrome VPN security options can provide an extra layer of protection when accessing hotel Wi-Fi through your browser. If you’re new to VPN technology, learning how to use VPN software properly will help you maximize your protection against hotel hacking.

What are the best VPNs to protect against hotel hacking?

After searching the market for some of the best VPN service providers, here are five that we highly recommend. They all provide a good amount of security, have all the required features, and will do an excellent job of protecting you against hotel hacking.

1. NordVPN

NordVPN is one of the oldest VPN providers. It has been around for over a decade and its ongoing popularity is still going strong, thanks in part to its huge server network and excellent value for the money. The provider’s server fleet is impressive — one of the largest, with over 5,800 servers in 59 countries. Having so many options means you’re unlikely to encounter geo-restrictions. Furthermore, this is a VPN that guarantees 99.9% uptime. While the company has been criticized in the past for speed issues, that is a thing of the past as NordVPN has deployed fruitful efforts to solve that.

NordVPN provides 256-bit encryption on OpenVPN with 2,048-bit Diffie-Hellman keys as standard. The service also offers several additional useful security features including a kill switch and shared IP addresses. Privacy is the provider’s strongest point, and being based in Panama means they are free to retain no user information whatsoever. Other unique features include double VPN servers — where your data is encrypted twice and rerouted through two successive VPN servers for extra protection against hotel hacking — and Onion over VPN servers, where your data is redirected through the TOR Network as well as a VPN for even better security.

Read our full NordVPN review.

2. Surfshark

Surfshark is an ideal choice for frequent travelers looking for a way to boost their security on hotel internet and guard against hotel hacking. Not only is it affordable, but it offers some advanced functionality you won’t find elsewhere.

For example, you can tailor specific VPN settings to different Wi-Fi networks. That means you can optimize Surfshark for speed and perhaps more relaxed security at home, while putting defenses up to maximum when connecting to public hotspots. What’s more, you have the best range of protocols to choose from, including OpenVPN, IKEv2/IPSec, WireGuard — all encrypted with the unbreakable 256-AES-GCM cipher.

Additionally, there is IP/DNS/WebRTC leak protection, a kill switch, plus automatic obfuscation on every one of their 3,200+ servers in 65 countries to confound would-be hotel hackers. Moreover, Surfshark purges any trace metadata of your activity with their RAM-only servers, per their strict no-logging policy.

Read our full Surfshark review.

3. ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN is one of the fastest VPNs and, considering today’s media-intensive apps such as Netflix, speed is important. This provider offers consistent speed across all its servers without compromising security. More importantly for the task at hand — defending against hotel hacking — this provider does an excellent job of staying under the radar when it comes to connecting to streaming services with geo-restrictions.

ExpressVPN uses resilient encryption standards like OpenVPN connections encrypted with 256-bit AES as default. The service’s 4,096-bit DHE-RSA keys are protected by an SHA-512 hashing algorithm. For an excellent level of privacy, this provider only retains minimal individual data. It is based in the British Virgin Islands and is therefore not legally required to retain any user data at all. The client app features a “network lock” — equivalent to other providers’ kill switch — that further protects your privacy by blocking all network traffic if the VPN connection ever drops. Although ExpressVPN may not have the largest number of servers, what it lacks in quantity it makes up for in speed and quality.

ExpressVPN’s client applications are available for most platforms and are very beginner-friendly. And if you do encounter an issue, the provider offers 24/7 customer support via live chat, with replies typically within a few seconds.

Read our full ExpressVPN review.

4. CyberGhost

CyberGhost is another immensely popular VPN provider. It made our list because the service works great and delivers what’s expected. This provider has over 6,000 servers in 87 countries, with 999 servers located in the US alone. This makes CyberGhost an excellent option to unblock many kinds of American geo-blocked content while ensuring a high level of security. Security-wise, this is a high-quality service that should provide excellent protection against hotel hacking.

By default, CyberGhost uses the OpenVPN protocol with 256-bit AES Encryption and 2,048-bit keys. For ultimate security, the provider also uses perfect secrecy. By generating a random key for each session, intercepting the connection is made much harder. Furthermore, the provider has a strict zero-logging policy — it doesn’t even keep user email addresses. Instead, it chose to have purchases processed by resellers so the only personal information it ever has about its users is their usernames. Other important features include the ubiquitous Internet kill switch that will automatically disconnect your network if the VPN connection goes down, as well as DNS and IP leak protection. The VPN client apps are available for Windows, Mac OS, iOS, and Android.

Read our full CyberGhost review.

5. PrivateVPN

PrivateVPN is another excellent provider on our list. Using this VPN, you will be able to safely stream, surf, download content from the web, and connect to your office network while being protected from hotel hacking. It can also let you simply check social media accounts or your email with full anonymity from anywhere. The two most important features of the service are its speed and its ease of use, making it one of the best VPNs for general daily use.

The client software is available for smartphones, desktop and laptop computers, and even Fire TV — a great advantage if that’s the platform you’re using to watch Netflix content. The interface is lightweight and easy to use, making PrivateVPN a great option for anyone who wants VPN protection without dealing with complicated settings.

PrivateVPN’s network is comprised of over 150 servers in 60+ countries. While this is no match for some of its competitors’ thousands of servers, the provider does a good job of remaining unnoticed by Netflix. On the security front, it uses 256-bit AES encryption and keeps your connection safe with an automatic kill switch and DNS leak protection. Furthermore, the supplier has a zero-logging policy on all traffic for an excellent level of privacy — essential for anyone concerned about hotel hacking.

Read our full PrivateVPN review.

6. PureVPN

Last on our list is PureVPN, a VPN supplier known for its fast and unrestricted access to the internet. Don’t let its ranking lead you to believe it is not good — after all, it is in the top six. The provider has a large network of 2,000+ servers in 140+ countries, meaning they’re almost everywhere. In addition to locations, PureVPN offers speedy connections, strong encryption algorithms, a zero-logging policy, unlimited bandwidth, DNS leak protection, and a quick kill switch to make sure your data always stays safe from hotel hacking in case the tunnel ceases working unexpectedly.

As far as encryption goes, PureVPN leaves nothing to be desired. The provider uses top-of-the-line, military-grade (up to) 256-bit encryption to protect user data from falling into the wrong hands. Furthermore, it offers all the latest security and connectivity protocols, including OpenVPN, L2TP/IPSec, PPTP, SSTP, and IKEv2. PureVPN writes its own software for all major platforms, giving you an excellent integrated experience across all your devices.

Read our full PureVPN review.

A brief history of hotel hacking

In the good old days, hotel hacking required physical access to the target device. Business and government travellers to China report that they would often leave their laptops and phones in hotel rooms while they went out for dinner. Upon returning to the United States, network administrators found that their devices had extra hardware installed into them. Dan Harris from China Law Blog, for example, reports a group of people returning to their rooms and catching people accessing their computers while in Tokyo, Japan.

The US authorities have been warning their citizens about taking internet-active devices to China since the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Former US National Counterintelligence executive, Joel Brenner, is still on a mission to inform the public about the risks of hotel hacking in China. He claims that the networks in hotels in China are monitored and manipulated by the Chinese secret service.

The physical access invasion which occurred in hotels evolved when properties started to offer in-room internet access, and again as WiFi became popular. However, hackers and security officials alike did not develop WiFi intervention methods immediately. In the beginning, hotel internet systems were typically used as a ploy to allow spies to gain access to the electronic devices of foreigners by invitation. Today, hotel hacking has become far more automated and sophisticated, making VPN protection more important than ever.

It would be a mistake, however, to think of hotel hacking as a problem confined to a handful of risky regions or tied to a particular era of espionage. The threat has evolved into a global hospitality industry problem, and recent years have produced some of the largest and most damaging incidents on record.

Ransomware attacks have disrupted hotel operations in ways that go well beyond data theft, in some cases locking staff out of property management systems, disabling room key card encoders, and taking reservation platforms offline. Guests at affected properties have arrived to find their bookings inaccessible and electronic room locks inoperable — a vivid illustration that hotel hacking now has physical consequences, not just digital ones.

Major hotel groups have disclosed guest-data breaches affecting tens or hundreds of millions of records, including passport numbers, payment card details, dates of birth, and loyalty account information. These breaches do not just expose historical data — the information harvested from them fuels the booking-related phishing scams and account-takeover attacks that guests continue to face years after the original incident.

Social-engineering attacks on hotel staff have become an increasingly documented entry point. Attackers posing as vendors, IT support providers, or corporate guests contact front-desk or reservations staff to extract credentials or gain remote access to internal systems. Once inside a hotel’s network, attackers can move laterally toward payment systems, guest databases, and connected building infrastructure.

Reservation platform breaches have exposed names, email addresses, phone numbers, and booking details for guests across multiple chains simultaneously, since many properties rely on the same third-party reservation and property management systems. A single breach of a platform provider can affect guests at thousands of hotels worldwide, regardless of which brand they booked with.

The lesson from all of this is that hotel hacking is no longer a concern only for government employees travelling to adversarial nations. It is a present, global risk for any traveller — leisure or business — staying at any property that handles digital reservations, runs networked systems, or offers shared Wi-Fi.

Conclusion

As you can see, hotel hacking has long been a serious threat, and it has turned into something ever-more sophisticated and sinister. If you travel a lot for work or leisure, you owe it to yourself to shell out a couple of bucks a month for solid VPN protection. By encrypting your Internet connection, you can stay invisible on public Wi-Fi hotspots commonly offered by hotels and keep hotel hacking attempts at bay.

Do you travel often to high-risk countries, and if so, have we convinced you to get a VPN before booking that hotel? Why or why not? Leave us a comment below.

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Renaud Larue-Langlois

Renaud Larue-Langlois is a freelance writer, blogger, and editor & proofreader specializing in Information Technology and Electronics. He left the corporate world after a 30+ years career in IT and Electronics to do what he loved the most and was the best at, writing.

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