What I meant to say is it doesn't seem like it was ever used for hacking. I probably shouldn't have said "proficiently", rather, "often". Meaning that if it was used, you didn't really hear about it ever happening.

I never use the built-in database dump functionality, as almost all dumps were corrupted. I always use an external utility to dump the data. Even phpMyAdmin is not recommended to backup and restore complete databases (at least if they are bigger than 2 MBytes).
If you have a root or dedicated server with access to the shell, then the fastest and safiest backup can be done with the mysqldump utility.
If you only can access FTP, then you should consider to install MySQLDumper (and secure it using a password), which can even backup and restore very big databases from the Browser.

I've always liked using PuTTy, once I stopped making typos and trying to access the wrong site. Ah, those early days.

Ha. That still happens to me even in my OLD days!