Your Winter Security Checklist: Small Steps That Make a Big Difference
Winter is a good time to take stock. The team gets a breather, and there's finally a moment to look after the things that often get pushed to the back of the queue. Security is usually one of those things.
It doesn't have to be complicated. A few simple habits go a long way towards keeping your property and your guests safe online. So here's a quick checklist. Run through it with your team and you'll be in good shape going into the busy season.
This is the one most properties skip, and it's probably the most important. Had a staff member leave in the last six months? A seasonal worker who came and went? Log into your Seekom account and check who still has access. Old accounts that are no longer in use are an open door, and one that's easy to close.
While you're there, make sure every team member has their own individual login. Shared logins might feel convenient, but they make it impossible to know who did what, and they're much harder to secure.
If you haven't already enabled Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) on your Seekom account, winter is the perfect time to sort it out. 2FA means that even if someone gets hold of a team member's password, they still can't get in without a second verification step. It's one of the simplest and most effective things you can do to protect your account, and it takes about five minutes to set up.
Our support team is happy to walk you through it. Just give us a call or drop us a message during business hours.
We know, we know. It's easier to just tell the new person the password. But shared passwords are one of the most common ways accounts get compromised.
The good news is there's no reason to share passwords in Seekom. Every account can have unlimited individual users, so everyone gets their own login with their own access level. Set it up once and you'll never need to share a password again.
Removing old user accounts is step one. But if a former team member knew your passwords, changing the locks matters too. Go through your key systems - your PMS, email accounts, OTA extranets, social media, and update any passwords that might have been shared with someone who’s no longer with you.
While you're at it, make sure passwords aren't being reused across different platforms. If one account gets compromised and the password is the same everywhere, the damage spreads fast. A password manager can take the headache out of keeping track of them all.
Your email account is the key to the kingdom. If someone gets into it, they can reset passwords for pretty much everything else. Yet email is often the last thing people think to protect.
A few quick wins:
- Enable two-factor authentication on your business email account, not just your PMS
- Check who has access to shared inboxes like info@ or reservations@ and remove anyone who no longer needs it
- Be careful about what you include in automated guest emails. Avoid putting full booking reference numbers or personal details in subject lines where they can be easily read
- If you get an email that looks like it's from a supplier or OTA asking you to update payment details or click a link, call them directly to verify before doing anything
Phishing is when someone sends you an email pretending to be a trusted source, trying to get you to hand over your login details or click a dodgy link. It happens more than you'd think in the accommodation industry.
The recent Booking.com breach is a good example of how this plays out. Once scammers had real guest data, including booking details and contact information, they used it to send convincing messages that looked like they came from a legitimate source. Guests were contacted via WhatsApp and email and asked to verify their payment details.
A few things to remind your team:
- Seekom will never ask for your password by email or phone
- If an email asks you to click a link and log in, go directly to the website instead of clicking
- When in doubt, call the company directly using a number you already know
- If something feels off, it probably is. Trust your gut and check with us
Take a look at your booking form and ask yourself: do we actually need all of this? A lot of properties collect more than they need. Dates of birth, passport numbers, dietary requirements for a property that doesn't serve meals. The less guest data you hold, the less there is to lose if something goes wrong.
Strip your forms back to what you genuinely use. It's better for your guests, better for your liability, and it makes your life simpler too.
If you're taking online payments, it's worth checking that 3D Secure (3DS) authentication is active on your SeekomPay setup. It adds a bank-level verification step for cardholders, which reduces fraud and protects your revenue from chargebacks.
Not sure if you have it switched on? Drop our support team a message and they'll check for you.
Start with whatever feels most overdue for your property. Even ticking off one or two things from this list will put you in a stronger position than you were yesterday. And if you need a hand with any of it, our support team is here. Give us a call or flick us a message and we’ll help you get sorted.
Note: Something you may not know is that we also build websites. Many of our customers have Seekom-built, self managed websites with full control, backed by our expert setup and support. If you’re interested in finding out more, please get in touch.
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Phone (NZ) : +64 4 974 9588
Phone (UK) : +44 20 3835 5939
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Copyright 2025 © Seekom Limited (NZ owned)
Latest changes improve guest communications, save time and paper
American novelist Mark Twain is famously credited with saying “continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection”.
We wouldn’t claim to be perfect at Seekom, but we do aim to roll out regular enhancements that make our leading property management software that little bit more powerful, easy to use and effective for people running accommodation businesses around the world.
The past few weeks have seen the introduction of three small enhancements to help you improve your guest communications and save staff time (and paper!).
Schedule guest notification emails during event weekends or holidays
You can now set up and schedule emails to be sent to guests during select time periods. This will be useful for those who want to send messages to guests at key times, perhaps to inform them of visitor rules during event weekends or remind them to keep noise down after midnight on New Year’s Eve.
Scheduled emails can be set up in Seekom’s Email Scheduler.
Seekom users can now navigate to the Arrivals & Departures screen and use the Arrivals tab to
tick all vehicle registrations they want printed on a single page.
Multiple vehicle registrations can now be printed on one page, for those who want to save
paper.
Print multiple vehicle registrations on one page to save paper
Seekom includes a time saving feature that allows you to print the vehicle registrations provided by your guests, for display on their vehicle dashboards during check-in. This smooths the check-in process while also making it easy for you to keep track of which vehicles in your carpark belong to paying guests.
We’ve recently made a small enhancement to this feature to make it possible to print multiple vehicle registrations on a single piece of paper. You can still print registrations individually if you prefer, but this enhancement will be helpful for those who want to save paper by printing multiple vehicle registrations on a page before separating them using your cutting implement of choice to give to customers on arrival.
Multiple vehicle registrations can now be printed on one page, for those who want to save
paper.
Plus a small time-saving change on the finance screen
A small change has been introduced on the finance screen to ensure the ‘Paid in by’ field is pre-populated with the name of the lead guest by default. This can still be changed as normal but pre-populating it with the lead guest will save some time in the majority of situations where the guest making the booking is also the person making the payment.
The ‘Paid in by’ field will now have the lead-guest pre-selected on Seekom’s finance screen,
saving staff time when entering payments.
That’s all for now, but we will have some exciting further changes coming up in the months ahead. Stay tuned and we will be sure to let you know as further enhancements are rolled out.
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Contact Us
4/234 Wakefield Street, Te Aro, Wellington 6011
Phone (NZ) : +64 4 974 9588
Phone (UK) : +44 20 3835 5939
Support: support@seekom.com
Websites: webhelp@seekom.com
Connect With Us
Copyright 2025 © Seekom Limited (NZ owned)