What you need to know about safes in hotels and how to secure values from theft
On the eve of the high season tourist portal Tourweek.RU found out how safes in hotels work and what to do to protect your values while staying at the hotel.
Factory code as a real problem
In January of this year, Lock Picking Lawyer posted on Youtube video, which gathered more than half a million views.
The video shows how the user puts into a typical hotel safe of one of the most popular manufacturers of the Scotch Whiskey. Then, as it should be, enters the code of four digits to close the safe. Everything works, the safe is closed.
But this does not guarantee reliable content protection. It turned out that a potential thief can get inside even without knowing the secret code. The robber can open a safe with factory settings that the hotel leaves the default. Often hotels do it consciously insured «just in case»: For example, the guest may forget its code, and then the safe can still be opened without a grinder and extreme methods.
On the video you can see how this happens: you need to enter «Supervent mode» – Press Lock lock button twice, then enter 999999. Ready, safe is open! The expert says that another code can stand by default: sometimes it is 000000 or 111111, or 0000, 1111, 9999 – depends on the model and the manufacturer, he notes. But professional thieves understand this.
How to secure accommodation in the hotel from theft
Here are some tips from experts to ensure the safety of personal belongings in the safe:
Before hideing the values in the safe, you need to check if there are default settings. If any, contact your hotel administrator.
It is necessary to make sure that the safe is attached to the wall, and not just standing on the surface and can be made from the room.
Use as a PIN code number, date of birth or registration – Insecure, since all this information has hotels and can be used by attackers.
Valuable things you rarely use during the restroom can be passed to the safe on the reception, if there is. So, the full responsibility for their safety will be accomplished.
