As mentioned by the Int'l PHP Magazine and posted on the Help Net Security website, there are some issues with recent releases of phpMyAdmin that can open the door to potential attackers:

Several remote vulnerabilities have been discovered in phpMyAdmin, a program to administrate MySQL over the web. The Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures project.

There's five issues around the PMA_ArrayWalkRecursive function, the blacklist functionality, cross-site scripting problems, and an issue that allows for the bypassing Allow/Deny access rules. It is recommended that you install the latest version to protect you and your applications.