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Blue World Reveals FileMaker 5 Internet Security Holes


Blue World Communications has published a FileMaker 5 security alert outlining serious Internet security issues with FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Pro 5 Unlimited’s XML publishing and email capabilities. One exploit enables an interloper to acquire the entire contents of any Web-published database as XML regardless of Web security settings; another permits the entire contents of a Web-published database to be retrieved via email, and a third enables anyone on the Internet to use FileMaker 5’s email capabilities to send arbitrary email messages via FileMaker Pro (a problem sure to delight spammers worldwide). These revelations come a week after FileMaker Inc. published documentation of FileMaker Pro 5’s Web publishing capabilities in FileMaker Developer 5, although portions of FileMaker’s XML capabilities have been documented on FileMaker’s Web site for five weeks. As of this writing, FileMaker has not acknowledged any problems, although sources indicate the company was informed of issues with Web security approximately a month ago. Currently, the only workarounds appear to be disabling FileMaker 5’s Web Companion, reverting to FileMaker Pro 4 (which does not have these security issues, but cannot open FileMaker 5 databases), or using a middleware product like Blue World’s Lasso as a gateway for incoming requests.

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