Cloud security solutions provider, Armor, and OpenKey, an industry standard for universal mobile key in hotels, have described how Armor is providing OpenKey with significant cost savings and “robust security” as the company expands domestically and internationally.
Founded in 2014, OpenKey is focused on protecting hotels and their guests by making mobile key technology a safe and seamless alternative to plastic room keys. Using the OpenKey application, hotel guests can receive directions to the hotel property, access hotel Wi-Fi codes, view dining and amenity information, request check-out, and, in many cases, automatically receive a digital key at check-in—among other things.
The hospitality industry is a popular target for cybercriminals. According to the 2018 Trustwave Global Security report, the hospitality industry is one of the top five industries subjected to network breaches each year. Additionally, this industry tends to use complex, often splintered technology systems from multiple vendors to fulfill multiple functions. This results in an environment with many back-end systems and connection points giving threat actors many access points to a company’s network to steal data or launch attacks.
To protect its environment, OpenKey chose to use Armor Complete, Armor’s secure cloud hosting solution. By working with Armor, OpenKey projects it has reduced the cost of using the cloud securely by more than 80%, amounting to an average of more than $200,000 (€176,357) in savings per year when compared with what the company would have spent given its growth trajectory. These savings stem from the elimination of costs tied to hiring data security personnel and implementing and maintaining technology, and it will likely increase year-over-year while OpenKey continues to expand.
With Armor Complete, OpenKey can use the solution’s high-performance infrastructure and built-in security controls to protect its environment and its customers’ data. In addition, Armor Complete customers benefit from the 24/7/365 monitoring and detection capabilities of Armor’s security operations center (SOC) as well as instant access to Armor’s team of on-demand incident responders and Threat Resistance Unit (TRU).
In the case of mobile key technology, compromising a guest’s identity or the application itself could lead to unauthorised access to a room. This makes security paramount for OpenKey, as physical security and cybersecurity are interconnected.
“Mobile key adoption is still in the early stages, and security is a critical part of our discussions as we introduce our technology to the industry,” said Chris Hickingbottom, vice president of engineering at OpenKey. “By choosing Armor as our cloud security provider, we can tell our security story to customers with total confidence.”
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