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By:  Huffingtonpost Staff

Hackers have been able to take advantage of a security flaw present in millions of hotel door locks to effortlessly steal from guests.

Forbes first reported on the flaw in July, and in a followup story, the magazine now says the bug, present in locks made by a company called Onity, has been exploited in a string of recent hotel thefts at a Houston Hyatt.

The security flaw was first publicized at a hacker conference in July by software developer Cody Brocious who showed how a simple electronics device could be used to unlock doors protected by locks in at least four million hotel rooms worldwide.

Brocious demonstrated how the locks could be compromised by inserting a digital probe into a small hole on the door l...

By: Stephen Largen

COLUMBIA — A law firm representing the state in the aftermath of a massive cyber breach now says no competitors were contacted before the state reached a $12 million no-bid contract with Experian.

Attorney Jon Neiditz of Columbia firm Nelson Mullins said the confusion over whether the firm had contacted other credit monitoring companies resulted from an unclear statement made by another attorney.

The company is providing a year of credit monitoring for taxpayers and dependents as well as lifetime credit fraud resolution.

The confusion over whether Nelson Mullins ever reached out to Experian competitors began at an Oct. 30 Senate Finance Committee hearing.

Revenue Department Director James Etter, who is resigning effective at t...

By: Staff, Post and Courier, Charleston, SC

A child was molested for 15 months after being placed by social workers in a Dorchester County home where a registered sex offender lived, state Rep. Jenny Horne said today.

“It’s outrageous,” said Horne, who lives in Summerville.

“I do know there is an investigation ongoing now,” Horne said.

She said she could not reveal the source of her information.

“It’s just grossly negligent. There is no other way to describe it,” she said.

At Horne’s urging, the Legislative Audit Council on Monday approved an audit of the state Department of Social Services. More than two dozen members of the State House Republican Caucus, including Horne, asked for...

By Martha Neil

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review a federal appeals court decision finding it unconstitutional to enforce an Illinois state law that makes it a felony to videotape police officers working in public if a microphone is turned on.

The law had been challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union, and a divided panel of the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed earlier this year that it “restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests" and, "as applied to the facts alleged here, it likely violates the First Amendment’s free speech and free-press guarantees,” as Judge Diane Sykes explained in the majority opinion (PDF).

On Monday, the nation's top court declined to hear th...