Question - How safe is your hotel room (from theft etc)?
Answer - Not very at all.
Question - How safe are YOU in your hotel room?
Answer - You'll probably be ok.
Long story short, yes there are hack out there that target the physical security, but personally if I was going to start breaking into the rooms, I wouldn't be going after the physical security, I'd be social engineering my way in.
There is a couple of ways to do it,
1. No one questions the workman in hi-vis. Turn up with an official looking clipboard, a toolkit and a story about how head office needs some work to be done ASAP, and you'll soon find an employee who will let you in with minimal questions asked. (middle managers are probably best for this, lowest wage staff are likely to refer you onto their manager). I've personally wondered around many an office as an outsider without a single person asking who I was. Quite a few of the times reception / an employee who was returning from a smoke break simply buzzed me in without any validation of my credentials. (I had legitimate reasons for been there, but they didn't know that)
2. Pretend to be the guest in question. A bit more fraught with danger, since some places will ask for ID and / or proof.
As for the hacking into the "home automation" system. This is my total lack of surprise. -> :-|
In developer circles, very few developers think about security. At most they might think about it for 5 minutes if there might be some sensitive data in there. So it is of no surprise that turning a light bulb on and off went into the "pft, why do we need security" basket.
