Security Issues

[Tamela Bastion]

I've been using FrontPage to post online forms for over two years. I train faculty and staff on campus and have shown several faculty/staff how to use FrontPage. Our campus just upgraded some users to FrontPage 2002, but the web administrators made a decision not to upgrade the FrontPage extensions. The web administrators have been using ColdFusion to create and maintain web pages. We are still able to create and post forms and everything works fine with the old FrontPage extensions. Obviously, we can't take full advantage of 2002, but ...

Any ways, the problem... one of the administrators can hack (ftp) into the files we create in our webs very easily and we are not allowed to have more than one field that identifies a person. One of our faculty would like to have a name and an ID, not a SS#. We were told that this can't be done on a non-secure server. We asked to have the form moved to a secure server and we are now being told, "Even on a secure server a file can be hacked if it's in txt format." We asked what format should we be using and didn't get a response. I noticed that 2002 by default, uses CSV. Also, know that there are new services in 2002 - SharePoint Services that relate to administration, etc. We were told that we can't have these services either. Is there real issues regarding security in FrontPage 2000 or is this a ColdFusion movement?

:rolleyes: Has anyone got a good suggestion?

[justjay]

The issue that you are dealing with is that FP and the SERVER EXTENSIONS use a "flat file" which is a .txt file, to store data, and this can be easily hacked.

What you need to/should explore is DB (databases) - these are much more secure and can offer you much more functionality. However this will involve using scripting (either PHP or ASP) and I am not sure what your current capabilities, expecations or direction maybe.

Would this be an avenue that could be explored?