The Airangel guest Wi-Fi gateway system used by hundreds of hotels has serious information leakage risks

A security researcher said that the Wi-Fi Internet gateway used by hundreds of hotels has a serious loophole, which may put guests’ personal information at risk. Etizaz Mohsin pointed out that the Airangel HSMX gateway contains a hard-coded password that is “extremely easy to guess”. Using these undisclosed credentials, an attacker can remotely access the gateway settings and database, which ultimately leads to the disclosure of information such as the database storing customer Wi-Fi usage records.

In this way, the attacker can get in touch with and steal visitor records, or reconfigure the gateway’s network settings to redirect the victim to a malicious web page unknowingly.

In fact, as early as 2018, Etizaz Mohsin discovered an abnormally behaving gateway on the network of a hotel where he stayed. At the time, it was synchronizing files from another server on the Internet.

Mohsin pointed out that it contains hundreds of thousands of gateway backup files from some of the most prestigious and expensive hotels in the world, and “millions” of customer names, email addresses, check-in/check-in/ Private information such as check-out date.

After reporting the vulnerability and getting the server protected, Mohsin began to think about another question-do these gateways imply related vulnerabilities that could cause hundreds of other hotels to face the same risks? In the end, the security researcher discovered five vulnerabilities that could compromise the gateway (including customer information).

Mohsin shared a screenshot to foreign media that shows a vulnerable hotel gateway management interface, and it lists the customer’s name, room number, and email address.

What makes people feel speechless is that despite reporting the newly discovered vulnerabilities to Airangel a few months ago, the British-based network equipment manufacturer has not been able to fix it.

A sales representative of the company replied that Airangel has stopped selling such devices that are no longer supported since 2018. However, the reality is that these legacy devices are still being widely used in hotels, shopping malls and conference centers around the world.

Even through a simple Internet scan, you can find 600+ Airangel gateways that are still at risk (the actual number of devices may be higher), and most of the affected hotels are located in the UK, Germany, Russia and the Middle East markets.