Can 000000 Secretly Open Your Hotel Safe?

This is a little disconcerting. Frequent traveller and caution-monger skyrangerpro discovered something bad about his hotel safe: it can be opened, overriding his own password, by entering all zeros. You might want to check your hotel safe today.

We’re still trying to discern the make of the unit in question up there, but it looks pretty standard issue. Manufacturer Nationwide Safes doesn’t make this one, but had this to say:

The safe shown in the video is not one of our hotel safes. However, most hotel safes, including the one shown in the video, support two user codes: a guest (user) passcode and an override code for use by hotel security. When a guest forgets her code, the safe may be opened by hotel security using the override code.

It is important to note that only the most negligent of hotel operators would leave the override code set to all 0’s, a default code, some other easy to guess code. The override code can (and must for obvious reasons) be changed to something difficult to guess prior to putting the safe into operation.

So who’s more at fault here — lazy hotel staff, or safe manufacturers for setting such a lazy default code? No matter who we blame for this half-arsed security, check this if you’re currently staying at a hotel, or the next time you check in — and let us know what you find. It’s one thing if someone can guess your phone’s password — another if someone can get their hands on your passport. [YouTube via Reddit]