Recent “Security Enhancements” in MIDAS

5 minute read time · Updated July 19, 2023

As part of our ongoing commitment to security, you may notice that “Security Enhancements” often appears in the changelog when we release new builds.

In this blog post we’ll shed some light on some of the “security enhancements” that were recently introduced in MIDAS v4.11 and v4.12.

IP Change Detection

Starting with MIDAS v4.12, If a logged in user’s IP address changes whilst they are logged in, then the system will automatically log the user account out, forcing the user to log in again.

It’s rare that a user’s IP address would legitimately change mid-session, so this additional security enhancement will not be noticed by the majority of our users.

What it does do however is strengthen user sessions against a “session hijack“. In general terms, a “session hijack” is when a malicious attacker takes over a user account by gaining access to the unique identifying token (or cookie) of an active user session.

With the new IP Change Detection implemented in MIDAS v4.12, should a user fall victim to a session hijack, the session would be immediately invalidated as the originating IP address would suddenly change from the valid user’s IP address, to the IP address of the attacker.

→ Tip: User’s IP addresses are also logged in each MIDAS system’s Recent Activity Log

Shorter Cookie Persistence

We’ve all come across website with “Remember Me” or “Keep Me Logged In” tick boxes on login screens. These mean that you don’t have to remember your username & password for the site each time you come to log in. When you select this box, information is stored in a browser “cookie” and retrieved the next time you visit.

MIDAS has included a “Remember Me” tickbox on the login screen since v4.07 (September 2014). Previously, the cookie saved by your browser would persist until 1st January 2020 – some 4 years in the future!

This meant that if you were to log in to MIDAS today, you could come back to the same browser in a few years time, and still log in without needing to remember your credentials.

We felt this was a little too long for your browser to be retaining such data. Therefore, from MIDAS v4.12 the “Remember Me” option will only remember your details for a period of 90 days. If you don’t log in again within this period, you’ll have to manually enter your email address/password again the next time you do.

Why is this better? Well, it ensures that “dormant” user accounts (those not logged into for over 90 days) don’t have lingering login details persisting in client-side cookies.

→ Tip: MIDAS Administrators can choose to disable the “Remember Me” option completely. This may be done via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Security

Improved Session Control

In MIDAS v4.11, we introduced a new security setting to automatically log out any users that have remained logged-in for more than a set number of hours. This setting may be found under MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Security → Session Control.

This is different to existing “inactivity” logout setting, which causes users to be logged off after a period of no activity. The additional “Always force logout after…” setting automatically logs users off after a set period of time, regardless if they are “active” or not.

Why is this useful? Well, browser extensions/addons exist which automatically “reload” a webpage at a recurring interval. This could potentially allow a user account to remain logged-in indefinitely, even if the “Inactivity forces logout after…” setting was set.

For example, if “Inactivity forces logout after…” setting in MIDAS was set to “1 hour”, then usually 1 hour after a user’s last interaction with MIDAS, they will be automatically logged off. However, if an addon/extension were setup to “reload” part of MIDAS every 30 minutes, this would look like “user activity” to MIDAS, and so the account would never be automatically logged out.

To combat this, the new additional “Always force logout after…” setting was introduced for v4.11. If your business usually runs 9am-5pm, you could set this setting to 8 hours. This will mean that no user account can remained logged in for more than 8 hours in total. So if a user was to log in at 9am and use a browser addon/extension to effectively remain logged in all day, they will still be automatically logged out of MIDAS at 5pm.

New Session Manager

MIDAS can be configured to allow concurrent logins to user accounts from multiple browsers/devices. When enabled, this allows a user to be concurrently logged into MIDAS from their laptop, phone, and tablet.

MIDAS v4.11 introduced a new “Session Manager“. This allows users to see other devices they’re currently logged in from. The session manager shows the IP address and browser of each session, and allows you to remotely log out!

Improved Password Change Behavior

MIDAS offers the ability to allow multiple concurrent logins to the same user account. In v4.11 we’ve enhanced this security. We’ve made it so that if a user changes their MIDAS password, all other devices they’re currently logged into from will be automatically logged out. Previously, changing a password from one device wouldn’t take effect on other devices a user was logged into until the next time they logged in.

Cryptographically-secure Random Number Generation

MIDAS stores passwords which are SHA512 hashed and randomly “salted”. The “randomness” of this “salt” has been improved starting with v4.11. Now, if the Perl module “Math::Random::Secure” is available on the server where a MIDAS system resides, MIDAS will utilize it to generate cryptographically-secure random numbers.

You might also be interested in:
Tips For Keeping Your MIDAS Secure
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MIDAS v4.12 Out Now!

3 minute read time · Updated January 28, 2024

We’ve been actively developing our Web Based Room Booking and Resource Scheduling Software for over 10 years now!

During this time we’ve seen many competitors come and go, and numerous customers making the switch to MIDAS. We have a genuine passion for how our software helps make life easier, saving time, money, and effort for venue administrators right across the globe, and we remain extremely customer focused.

With exciting new and improved features being added to MIDAS several times each year, we’re pleased to tell you about our latest update – v4.12 – which has just been released!

New & Improved in 4.12:

How To Get MIDAS v4.12…

New To MIDAS?

We are committed to keeping our pricing fair and accessible to organizations of all sizes and budgets. Unlike many of our competitors who don’t publish their prices, we’re totally upfront and transparent about our pricing structure and clearly display prices on our website.

You can view pricing, find out more, and purchase MIDAS securely at https://mid.as/pricing

Existing “Self Hosted” Customer?

Self-Hosted customers with ongoing Annual Support Subscriptions may update to v4.12 right now! It only takes a couple of clicks – simply log in to your MIDAS system and go to MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Update

Existing “Cloud Hosted” Customer?

Cloud-Hosted customers don’t need to do anything! – All our active Cloud-Hosted MIDAS customers were automatically updated over the weekend to this latest version of MIDAS!

Help Improve MIDAS!

We’re able to bring you exciting updates like v4.12 thanks in part to our Beta Testers – many of whom are just every day MIDAS users!

Our Beta Testers get early-access to upcoming releases to explore and provide feedback on, allowing us to make changes and address potential issues before each new version is publicly released.

We also reward Testers for their contributions with discounts against the cost of purchasing MIDAS, or which can be used against upgrades & renewals for an existing MIDAS system!

We’re always on the lookout for additional testers to help shape future versions of MIDAS. It’s free to get involved and you don’t need any previous experience.

→ Find out more, apply now, and help shape future MIDAS releases

If you have any questions about MIDAS, why not drop us an email, or reach out to us through social media – We’d love to hear from you!

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World Backup Day 2016 – Take a moment to backup your data

3 minute read time · Updated February 14, 2025

World Backup Day 2016Today is World Backup Day. This annual event raises awareness of the importance of keeping your critical files and data regularly backed-up.

We strongly believe in the importance of regularly backing-up data you can’t afford to lose. To that end, we built a number of backup features into our MIDAS room booking software to do just that!

Automated Backups

MIDAS seamlessly makes a complete and automated backup of its own database and settings upon the first successful login each and every day. These database backups are then compressed and stored on the server where your MIDAS resides for a period of time. This is usually for up to 30 days, but can be customized. Typically, each backup is less than 1MB in size too.

To further protect your data, automated daily backups can be optionally emailed to a specified email address each day too. This allows you to retain your own “off-site” database backup too!

Manual Backups

In addition to automated backups, MIDAS provides the ability to generate manual backups on-demand via a one-click “Backup” button. This may be accessed via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Database → Backup Now.

Restoring From Backups

Database backups (whether generated manually or automatically) can be readily restored at any time via a simple restore user interface. Databases may be restored – either full or partially – via MIDAS Admin Options → Manage MIDAS → Database → Restore. So, should you ever wish to “roll back” your MIDAS system to an earlier point in time, or if you suffer a massive server failure and lose data, you can have your MIDAS system back up and running in next to no time!

Backup and Restore in MIDAS
Easily Backup and Restore Data in MIDAS Booking Systems

For more information on the powerful backup/restore features of MIDAS, please see mid.as/help/manage-database-settings

Additional Protection for Cloud-Hosted customers

For our cloud hosted customers, we also separately take complete database backups daily. These are then stored off-site at two geographically separate locations for a period of six months.

What’s more, we also offer an “Emergency Access” addon for our hosted customers. This optional addon allows cloud-hosted customers to access a “real-time” backup of their hosted MIDAS system in event that they are unable to access their primary MIDAS system. These backups run on different servers, in different data centers, via different ISPs to our Primary Servers.

So, as you can see from all the above features and procedures we’ve built into our software, we take backups very seriously! We make it easy to ensure that your important MIDAS booking data can easily and readily be backed up and restored with the minimum of fuss!

But on World Backup Day today, whilst your MIDAS data is taken care of, why not take a moment to back up your own important personal files – your family photos, home videos, documents and emails too!? Yes, it may seem a little time-consuming, but you’ll be glad you did should anything ever happen to the originals!

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Missing booking requests? – Your mail filters may be to blame!

4 minute read time · Updated January 6, 2023

One of our customers recently contacted us to report a strange issue whereby booking requests made through their MIDAS scheduling system were seemingly vanishing from their system.

The “Booking Request” features of MIDAS, allow people to submit booking “requests” which then require approval by an administrator before becoming a “confirmed” booking.

There are a number of reasons why a booking request may legitimately appear to “vanish” from the system; first of all, another administrative user may have already rejected the original booking request, or the original requestor may have changed their mind and canceled their own request.

When a person makes a booking request, MIDAS automatically send them an email notification containing details of the request they’ve submitted. These email notifications also contain a “booking request cancellation link” allowing them to cancel their request if for whatever reason they’ve changed their mind before their request is approved.

Inspecting the provided “Recent Activity Log” for the customer’s MIDAS system, there was no evidence to suggest that another user had simply rejected the missing booking requests.

There was however evidence that the booking request cancellation links, contained within the notification emails sent to original requestors had been clicked.

The customer was confident that no-one had clicked these cancellation links in their emails.

Now, the “Recent Activity Log” within MIDAS is very useful – not only does it record actions performed within a MIDAS system, it also records the user who performed the action (where applicable), the time/date the action occurred, and the IP address of the device which performed the action.

This allowed us to correlate booking request cancellation link clicks with the IP addresses from which each originated.

Interestingly, the IP addresses could all be traced back to Barracuda Networks, Inc, a company offering security products, including email security and spam filters.

So what was going on?

Once upon a time spam filters could easily detect spam email messages, as spammers tended to the same domains in their spam. As a result, spam filtering software could simply scan the content of an email message, and cross-reference any links contained within against a list of known spamming domains.

Many spam filters still behave in this way, however, in an attempt to stay one step ahead of the spammers, some spam filtering software/services – such as those provide by Barracuda Networks, Inc, go one step further and actively “click” EVERY link in every email they scan. The purpose behind this is to analyze the content and domain every link points to.

Whilst this will most likely help reduce spam further for the recipient, it can have a number of undesired consequences for users!

For example, if the recipient subscribes to any newsletters/mailing lists which contain a one-click unsubscribe link at the bottom, they will be automatically unsubscribed simply by receiving the email itself, before they even open it – let alone click the unsubscribe link!

The same thing was happening for our customer’s booking request notification emails – the booking request cancellation links were being automatically “clicked” by the spam filtering software/services which were scanning the recipient’s email.

Balancing user convenience vs aggressive mail scanners

We’ve always believed in making things as easy as possible for users – which is why we originally made canceling booking requests as simple as a “one-click” link – click once, and your request is canceled.

However, in light of these recent issues, we’re making a small change for MIDAS v4.12. Canceling a booking request will now unfortunately be a two-step process. Clicking a booking request cancellation link in a notification email will take the requestor to a web page where they will need to then click a confirm button in order to cancel their request.

The introduction of this second confirmation step, whilst less convenient for the end-user, will at least prevent aggressive mail filtering software/services which automatically “click” every link in every email, from automatically canceling booking requests without any human interaction.

The same “two-step” behavior will also be applied for links in booking/invoice reminder emails to suppress future reminders from a MIDAS system.

In the meantime, if you’re running an earlier version of MIDAS, and notice your booking requests being automatically canceled without any intervention, please check and adjust the settings in your mail scanning/filtering software. You may need to add email from your MIDAS system to an “allow list”, or prevent the automatic following of links within email.

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