Guide
PMS security monitoring vs guest screening: what's the difference?
The short answer
Guest screening tools check the guest before arrival: identity, background and booking risk.
PMS security monitoring, which is what Flare does, checks your property management system (PMS) itself: who has access, who becomes an admin, and whether payout details, guest messages or check-in instructions change.
They protect against different attacks. Most rental managers need both.
Side by side
| Guest screening | PMS security monitoring (Flare) | |
|---|---|---|
| What it watches | The guest and the booking | Your Guesty account |
| Main threat | Fake identities, parties, damage, stolen cards | Account takeover, payout fraud, guest phishing in your name |
| When it acts | Before check-in | Within minutes for new access and payout changes; the same day or overnight for the rest |
| Example alert | “High-risk reservation” | “New admin added, then owner bank details changed” |
Why PMS monitoring matters now
Since 2025, fake booking-platform emails and fake “verify you're human” pages have been used to steal hospitality staff logins. Once criminals are inside a PMS, they can:
- add themselves as an admin
- redirect owner payouts to their own bank account
- message guests asking them to “pay again” or “re-verify” their card
Guest screening cannot see any of this, because the guest is not the attacker. The attacker is inside your account.
How Flare works
- Connects to Guesty with a key you create just for Flare
- Read-only by default: Flare never changes your data (optional real-time checks add one webhook, with your permission)
- Stores fingerprints, not guest data
- Sends plain alerts by email or Slack, ranked: Act today, Fix this week, Fix when you can