Meet Max

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Max Sharples is Chief Technical Officer. Best known around the office for the eclectic collection of pictures on the wall behind his desk and his love of Twitter, he can rarely be seen without a fresh coffee in his hand. If he could have any superpower it would be the ability to fly and when he was little he always dreamed of becoming a pilot.

Password and Security

By Max | Published May 2, 2012

The most vulnerable part of any web application is the authentication layer. It would be much easier for programmers and system administrators to secure a software application if there were no users who required access. That users can create their own passwords makes this vulnerability even worse.

If you use a lot of internet services (Gmail, iTunes, Facebook, online banking), you will probably have a variety of different user accounts and associated passwords. Remembering all of these passwords can be a problem.

There are many solutions to the forgotten password problem. There are single sign on services, browser features, third party apps, and plugins. Many websites now allow you to log in with your Twitter or Facebook credentials. The problem still remains that humans are prone to using weak passwords whilst underestimating the risk this poses to their personal privacy and data security.

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Email Authentication

By Max | Published December 16, 2011

Has this happened to you? You’ve received an email from your bank asking you to log in and update your details. It looks legitimate. It’s from an email address at your bank’s domain name and the bank’s logo is at the top but it’s a forgery.

This is the problem with email. It’s easy to send, and just as easy to forge. Spammers can use simple techniques like this to trick the unsuspecting email user into divulging their personal financial details.

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