Beautiful Virgin Islands

Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

Hotel WiFi across MENA compromised and exposing private data

Hotel WiFi across MENA compromised and exposing private data

Cybersecurity researcher uncovers faulty system used by hotels in the Middle East surrendering personal information on millions of guests worldwide.

Pakistani cybersecurity researcher Etizaz Mohsin was in a hotel room in Qatar when he unexpectedly discovered a technical vulnerability in its internet system that exposed the private information of hundreds of hotels and millions of guests worldwide.

Mohsin told Al Jazeera he was “stunned” by what he uncovered late last year.

“I found out that there is a service running rsync [file synchronization tool], which allows me to dump the files of the device to my own computer,” Mohsin explained. “I was able to access the sensitive information of all other hotels which were using the FTP [file transfer protocol] server for backup purposes.”

From his hotel room he was able to obtain network configurations of 629 major hotels across 40 countries, and the personal information of millions of guests, including their room numbers, emails, and dates they checked in and out of the hotel.

The data included that of major hotel chains across the Middle East and North Africa region, including the Kempinski, the Millennium, Sheraton, and St Regis in Qatar, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, Bahrain, Oman, Jordan, Kuwait and Bahrain.

The hotels all use an internet system called HSMX Gateway by British company AirAngel. Its clients are among the largest hotel brands worldwide.

This is common practice; most hotels, malls, restaurants, and cafés require people to create an account and fill their information after connecting to the internet in order to start using it. However, it is not without its risks.

“A public WiFi network is fundamentally less secure than one you use at home,” Mohsin explained. “It allows hackers to monitor and intercept data sent across the link, giving them access to sensitive information such as banking credentials and account passwords.”

The HSMX Gateway incident is similar to a vulnerability in hotel routers researchers discovered seven years ago, which affected 277 devices in hotels and convention centres in the United States, Singapore, the United Kingdom, the UAE, and 25 other countries.


‘Stakes are high’


Cybersecurity consultant Ragheb Ghandour told Al Jazeera the ease of access to this data, especially with how centralized it is among hundreds of hotels, is a huge cause for concern.

“Let’s say a spy checks into one of these listed hotels, skims through the files and finds a point of intrusion. They could modify – or mirror – the landing page for the WiFi connection and all the clients of the hotel would send their information straight to them,” Ghandour said. “The stakes are high. You could wreak havoc through the hotel.”

It is not just guests’ personal information that is at risk. Mohsin said a hacker could use the vulnerability to access the guests’ computer and mobile devices, as well as the hotel’s security footage, ventilation systems, and electronic door locks.

In fact, assassins used a vulnerability in a luxury hotel’s internet to unlock an electronic door and carry out a targeted killing in Dubai 12 years ago.

In 2010, a hit squad, reportedly members the Israeli Mossad intelligence agency, assassinated senior Hamas official Mahmoud al-Mabhouh at a luxury hotel in the Emirati city after hacking the key system to enter al-Mabhouh’s room.

AirAngel said in a statement it stopped updating its software in November 2020, and the firm encouraged clients to replace it with a new service called Captivnet. The issue with the previous service remains unfixed, however.

AirAngel added only a small number of clients have not migrated to Captivnet and still use HSMX Gateway. But more than half of the hotels Mohsin discovered compromised continue to use the service.

Of the 629 hotels Mohsin found with faulty internet protection, 378 have not switched to AirAngel’s new service, including more than 100 in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Lebanon, Egypt, and other countries across the MENA region, he said.

Mohsin said he hopes his findings will encourage more people to improve their digital security.

“Always a use a VPN to encrypt all your data as it travels via the network via secure tunnel,” he explained. “Alternatively, you might use mobile data [instead of WiFi] to avoid the dangers in the first place.”


Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×