A new study has found that 10 prominent Irish hotels have internet security breaches.

IT firm Smarttech.ie carried out the research, which found that the hotels have a fundamental security flaw in their guest wi-fi service that it says puts users at potential risk.

It is claimed that the security flaw can allow hackers to access the guest web traffic and sensitive information.

The tests on 10 randomly selected hotels found hackers would be able to collect everything from e-mail logins, credit card details, Facebook passwords and PayPal account details of people using the public wi-fi.

Test cyber-attacks were carried out as part of the research and found that 100% of them revealed "serious vulnerabilities and risks for the users".

Sensitive information - such as e-mails and log-ins - were accessible to potential hackers within 20 minutes at each location and with minimal effort.

It is reminding users accessing public wi-fi to be aware of the security challenges. Ronan Murphy is CEO of Smarttech.ie.