The manager of the four-star Romantik Seehotel Jaegerwirt, found on the picturesque banks of Lake Turrach in the Gurktal Alps, decided to speak out about the ordeal to raise awareness of the threat posed to hoteliers and their guests by cyber criminals. It was the fourth time the 111-year hotel, where suites cost as much as $380 a night, had been targeted by hackers.

It was the opening weekend of the winter season when an email dropped into the inbox of manager, Christoph Brandstaetter. Beginning innocuously with "Good morning?" it went on to demand a ransom of €1500 ($2107) paid in the digital currency of bitcoin, before ending with "Have a nice day!"

It has been widely reported that the hackers managed to lock the doors of each room in the hotel, shutting guests inside, however, Brandstaetter has since told tech website The Verge that this was not the case. The criminals instead only disabled the hotel's ability to program and issue keycards.

"The keycards and the computers were affected, but the doors were not," he said.

Speaking earlier of the attack, Brandstaetter said: "The house was totally booked with 180 guests, we had no other choice. Neither police nor insurance help you in this case. The hackers were very pushy.

"The restoration of our system after the first attack in summer has cost us several thousand euros. We did not get any money from the insurance so far because none of those to blame could be found.

"Every euro that is paid to blackmailers hurts us. We know that other colleagues have been attacked, who have done similarly."

Once the money was paid into a Bitcoin wallet, details of which hackers included in the email, control of the system was restored to the hotel. However, according to the hotel, the cyber criminals must have retained access to the mainframe via a backdoor as they later attempted to attack again, but the Seehotel Jaegerwirt had updated its security setup.

"We are planning at the next room refurbishment for old-fashioned door locks with real keys," said Brandstaetter. "Just like 111 years ago at the time of our great grandfathers."

By speaking out, the manager hopes that more can be done to tackle the crimes - he was told by the police that he was "in good company" after being hacked.

The software used in such attacks is known as ransomware, and is understood to be a common tool of hackers in Russia and Eastern Europe. The virus is sent in an email containing software that encrypts files on a computer and locks the user out. Ransoms are requested in the hard-to-trace currency, bitcoin.

"Ransomware is becoming a pandemic," Tony Neate, a former British police officer who investigated cybercrime for 15 years, told the NY Times. "With the internet, anything can be switched on and off, from computers to cameras to baby monitors."

He said, however, that attacking a hotel and locking people in or out of their rooms was "a new line of attack".

The Telegraph, London