Hackers take control of hotel's key card room entry system, demand ransom

Hotels have largely tossed out their traditional keys, replacing them with cards that give guests access to their rooms.

One highly regarded hospitality establishment in Austria has decided it's time to go back to the old way.

Management at the Romantik Seehotel Jägerwirt told The Local that its key card system was recently hacked.

Related: Hack reveals Democratic Congress members' phone numbers

Those who had taken control of the hotel's doors, prohibiting guests from entering or leaving them, demanded roughly $1,600 in Bitcoin to reverse the action.

At full capacity and with little other means of rectifying the problem in a timely manner, the hotel paid up, notes Forbes.

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Not long after, the perpetrators struck again, but, thanks to the property's quick overhaul of the system, were unsuccessful.

The incident was not an isolated one. In fact, it was the third time the hotel had been targeted by hackers.

According to Christoph Brandstaetter, managing director of Romantik Seehotel Jägerwirt, the next renovation of the 111-year-old hotel will include old fashioned locks and keys, like those in the, "time of our great-grandfathers."