Public Wi-Fi hotspots in hotels and conference centres pose remote access risk

Security researchers have uncovered a flaw in temporary Wi-Fi connections - such as those in hotels or conference systems - that could allow hackers to tamper with the network and gain access to systems using it.

The CVE-2015-0932 vulnerability was found in 277 hotel, conference centre and data centre Wi-Fi networks that use ANTLabs InnGate devices, allowing hackers to carry out attacks similar to the DarkHotel incidents at the end of last year.

Using an unauthenticated rsync daemon running on TCP 873, the hacker can gain read and write priveleges in any Linux-based operating system, experts at Cylance said, folllowing the study.

Brian Wallace, senior researcher and software engineer at Cylane, said in a blog post: "When an attacker gains full read and write access to a Linux file system, it's trivial to then turn that into remote code execution.

"The attacker could upload a backdoored version of nearly any executable on the system and then gain execution control, or simply add an additional user with root level access and a password known to the attacker. Once full file system access is obtained, the endpoint is at the mercy of the attacker."

He suggested they could install malware on a target's computer, siphon off personal details about the user, or gain access to the hotel chain's property management system (PMS), including payment details of visitors.

Justin W. Clarke, senior security researcher on the Cylance Spear (Sophisticated Penetration Exploitation and Research) team said: "Given that the ANTlabs' product integrates with external systems, such as a hotel's PMS, this vulnerability could be leveraged to gain deeper access into a hotel's business network.

"This is similar to the Target breach where attackers were able to penetrate the organisation's internal network through a vulnerability in the heating and cooling system."