What’s Next for Hotel Cybersecurity: Emerging Threats to Watch in 2026

Hotels have rapidly transformed into high-tech environments. Smart features like connected lighting, thermostats, locks, and other IoT devices have been part of the guest experience for years now, but fresh innovations continue to change the hotel cybersecurity landscape. Mobile check-in, digital room keys, and AI-powered services are becoming standard, and chatbots now play a central role in coordinating guest services behind the scenes.

While this new wave of technology is helping hotels become more modern, efficient, and convenient for guests, it’s also introducing new layers of cybersecurity risk. In fact, according to a recent report by VikingCloud, 82% of North American hotels were hit by cyberattacks last summer, and more than half were targeted five or more times. A key mitigation for this scale of targeting is managing the risks associated with adopting new technologies rapidly across the enterprise.

As hotel technology becomes more interconnected and embedded in daily operations, the attack surface is expanding at an alarming rate. To keep pace with innovation while still safeguarding guest data, revenue systems, and brand reputation, it’s time to prepare for the new year’s biggest cyber threats.

Hospitality’s Ever-Growing Digital Footprint

The first step in defending the attack surface is understanding what’s in it.

Smart locks, mobile keys, and occupancy sensors are now mainstays in hotels’ guest-facing and operational systems. Alongside these baseline technologies, more hoteliers are onboarding artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance check-ins, personalize bookings, and proactively manage guest services. Industry research reveals that 78% of hotels today now use AI for mobile check-ins, guest services, or chatbots, with 84% planning to expand AI-based communication within the next two years. With these integrations comes any number of risks: data security, data integrity, transparency, and the potential for misconfigurations.

Of course, while AI is grabbing headlines, it’s not the only way hoteliers weave tech into operations. Many hotel tech stacks are ripe with interconnected systems, including cloud-based property management systems (PMS), central reservation systems (CRS), loyalty platforms, point-of-sale (POS) tools, and even smart HVAC controls. But along with their convenience and efficiency, each system brings a new set of vulnerabilities. And unfortunately, improvements in cybersecurity defense lag behind due to time, people, and budgetary restraints.

Bottom line: Hotels are rapidly adopting technology, but cybersecurity maturity isn’t keeping up.

Top Cybersecurity Threats for Hotels in 2026

To prepare defenses, hotel leaders need a clear view of the landscape. Here are three of the most pressing cybersecurity threats on the horizon for 2026:

1. AI-Powered Phishing and Deepfakes

AI and large language models (LLMs) may be relatively new on the tech scene, but cybercriminals have already found ways to weaponize them to breach hotel systems.

For example, attackers can use tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or other LLMs to create highly realistic (and convincing) phishing scripts to target hotel staff via email or messaging apps. Plus, these tools make it easy to quickly translate messages in multiple languages to rapidly expand reach. Earlier this year, threat actor TA558 used AI-generated scripts to launch phishing campaigns against Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking hotel staff to steal credit card data.

With ChatGPT at their fingertips, bad actors can easily pose as hotel leadership, send fake guest complaints, or create bogus invoices. These can be simple but effective ways to manipulate employees and gain access to critical systems. More alarmingly, voice and video deepfakes now enable attackers to impersonate guests, vendors, or senior staff with hyper-realism so they can more easily bypass identity verification.

Because this technology is new and rapidly evolving, many hoteliers don’t yet have the tools or training to defend against it. According to a recent report, 48% of hotel IT leaders said they lack confidence in their team’s ability to detect AI-generated attacks, with 22% saying hackers now outpace their defenses.

2. IoT Exploits in Smart Rooms

IoT devices can be a ubiquitous presence in modern hotels. From minibar sensors and smart lighting in guest rooms to digital signage at the front desk and even HVAC systems and occupancy sensors in back-of-house operations.

The catch with these smart systems is that they can also serve as entry points for cybercriminals to infiltrate hotel infrastructure. All a bad actor has to do is exploit a known vulnerability in a device; from there, they can move laterally through the hotel network to reach sensitive systems.

IoT devices are a particularly thorny challenge because they’re rarely standardized. Often supplied by different vendors and built on different generations of firmware, it’s an arduous task for IT teams to manage updates and apply security patching, making it all too easy to leave gaps in coverage that bad actors are ready to pounce on. IoT devices are often prone to becoming part of shadow IT due to their complexity and connectivity, making visibility and management a continuing issue.

3. Third-Party Vendor Devices

It takes a web of vendors to keep a modern hotel running, including POS providers, kiosk manufacturers, cloud service platforms, and much more. But beyond operational convenience, every vendor connection creates another pathway for hackers to exploit, and they don’t even need to breach the hotel directly. A widely leveraged vendor is often more appealing as a target for threat actors than a single firm because with less work, more sensitive information from multiple companies can be compromised.

Many vendors have legitimate access to hotel infrastructure. Self-service check-in kiosks, for example, often run on shared networks—and they’re only becoming more widespread. A survey of 2,000 American travelers reveals 70% now prefer self-check-in, making these kiosks a guest expectation.

But in helping streamline arrivals, these devices can become stockpiles of sensitive personally identifiable information (PII) (e.g., names, emails, credit card numbers), and a hot target for identity theft, fraud, or ransomware.

If a cybercriminal succeeds in breaching a vendor’s system or compromising a device they maintain, then the hotel system can be indirectly exposed, and that has very real consequences. Even if the hotel isn’t the initial entry point, it still holds legal responsibility for safeguarding guests’ PII and can face regulatory penalties, financial losses, and reputational fallout in the aftermath of an attack.

How Hotels Can Stay Ahead of Cyberthreats in 2026

As hotels continue to embrace smart technologies and digital services, they can expect new gains in efficiency, personalization, and guest satisfaction. But to realize those benefits without exposing themselves to next-generation cyber threats, it’s critical to adopt proactive defense strategies:

• Move Toward Zero Trust Architecture: The principle is simple: “Never trust, always verify.” By implementing continuous authentication and role-based access that limits permissions to only necessary functions and access points, hotels can reduce the risk of internal threats and lateral movement. Since no enterprise can fully adopt a zero trust model across the enterprise without seriously impacting critical business functions, careful planning and prioritization can help hotels leverage a zero-trust mindset where feasible and beneficial to avoid compromising the enterprise functionality.
• Use AI for Threat Detection and Response: If the bad guys are using AI to advance threat tactics, then hotels can take advantage of the technology, too. Specifically, hotel IT teams can use machine learning to detect anomalies in network behavior, flag suspicious activity, and trigger automated responses to mitigate threats before they escalate.
• Step Up Vendor Risk Management: Don’t assume third parties are secure. Require vendors to follow rigorous cybersecurity protocols, and include encryption, multi-factor authentication (MFA), and regular audits in all service-level agreements (SLAs).
• Mandate Regular Staff Cyber Training: Cyber attacks almost always include a human element. Foster a culture of vigilance, and train all staff to identify suspicious communications, question unexpected requests, and respond appropriately through simulations, awareness campaigns, and clear escalation protocols.
• Collaborate With Industry Peers: The best cybersecurity education extends beyond a single hotel’s borders. By collaborating with industry peers through organizations hotel IT teams can share best practices, exchange threat intelligence, and build better security for the entire industry.

Conclusion: Resilience Through Readiness

The hotelier of 2026 must balance technological innovation with cybersecurity vigilance. That means reckoning with the fact that IoT, AI, and other smart systems can enrich guest experiences and streamline operations. But they must be deployed and maintained responsibly.

It’s also a reminder that even the most advanced systems rely on people, making ongoing staff training and education just as essential as any technical solution.

Reprinted from the Hotel Business Review with permission from www.HotelExecutive.com.

View source