Setting out for a vacation or a Business Trip also means searching for a hotel that suits all your needs. These days, having an adequate Wi-Fi system has become one of the modern prerogatives. Whether you just want to check your email, general news or sports results, or you need frequent communication with your home office, you need to get online, whether you are in your room, hotel lobby, or while having brunch in the hotel restaurant. Sure, it is convenient and time-saving, but is it all that safe and are the malicious hackers, who are interested in the ordinary tourists and business travelers, safe too?
Hackers seem to be omnipresent
Unfortunately, it seems that malicious hackers are omnipresent and seem to be everywhere, whether it is attacking businesses and officials, or just ordinary citizens in their homes. Hotel Wi-Fi systems are no exception, actually, they seem to be one of the hackers' favorite targets, particularly during the holiday season. The problem has been known for a while now, and ethical hacking organizations like "ToolsWatch" and "HackerNews" have practically shown how easy it is, even for a moderately skilled hacker, to make a breach into a hotel Wi-Fi network.
Actually, there is even a malicious hacker group, the so called "Dark Hotel," that particularly targets business travelers lodging mainly in luxury hotels that attacks them with malicious malware.
The group's presence has been known for over a decade, and it seemed to be dormant until recently, when it revived its activities. Their methods are refined and involve a few stages to evade suspicion, and that is why the malicious activities of "Dark Hotel' pose quite a threat. E-threat analysts at companies like "BitDefender" are of the opinion that there might be a state factor involved behind such an organized group.
What is to be done?
Of course, not using a hotel Wi-Fi network is always a possibility. But then, some networks might be more reliable than others, but all are vulnerable at some level. The e-security companies like "Kaspersky" constantly work on uncovering the malicious hackers methodology and developing new software patches as the protection against such attacks.
That is why the first prerogative of any traveler is to have some kind of a protection system on the mobile device they are taking with them and to update it as close as is possible before leaving for their vacation or a business trip. Otherwise, hope is the only thing remaining, and just hope usually does not pay off.
