What is a SQL Injection and How to Prevent It?

An SQL injection attack involves inserting or “injecting” a SQL query through the client’s input data to the application. Bad actors can use SQL exploits to read sensitive data. This post will cover what a SQL injection is, its impact on your business, and how to mitigate it. 

When successfully exploited, an intruder can modify (Insert/Update/Delete) the database. Also, it can perform administration operations such as shutting down the DBMS, restoring the contents of files on the DBMS file systems, and sometimes issue commands to the operating program. 

SQL injection attacks are a form of injection in which intruders insert SQL commands to data plane input to alter the execution of predefined SQL commands.

What is SQL injection?

SQL injection or SQLI. This attack vector uses SQL code to manipulate backend databases to gain access to information that it should not have. This information could include sensitive company data or customer details.

SQL injection can have a significant impact on a company’s business. A successful attack allows unauthorized viewing of user lists. Further, bad actors can delete or modify entire tables. In some cases, they might gain administrative rights to the database. All of these are extremely detrimental to a company.

It is crucial to account for the possible loss of customer trust when calculating the cost of an SQLi. The intruder can steal personal information like phone numbers, addresses, credit card details, and even telephone numbers.

Websites are the most common targets of these attacks; however, black hat hackers can use this vector to attack any SQL Database.

Threat Modeling

There is no doubt that an SQL Injection is very detrimental to your company and reputation. Amongst the many threats, here are the main most common ones:

• SQL injection attacks enable attackers to create false identities, alter existing data, cause repudiation issues like voiding transactions and changing balances, disclose all data on the system, make it unavailable or destroy it, and become database administrators.
• Due to older functional interfaces, SQL Injection is quite common in PHP and ASP applications. J2EE and ASP.NET are less likely than ASP.NET to have SQL injections easily exploited due to the availability of programmatic interfaces.
• The severity of SQL Injection attacks will depend on the attacker’s imagination and skills. However, for the most part, an SQL Injection has a high impact severity.

Description

SQL injection attacks occur when:

1. Untrusted data causes unintended data to enter into a program.
2. Bad actors use the data to build a dynamic SQL query.

These are the main consequences:

• SQL Injection vulnerabilities can lead to loss of confidentiality because SQL databases contain sensitive data.
• Authentication: It is possible to connect to a system with a different user without prior knowledge of the password if you use poor SQL commands to verify user names and passwords.
• Authorization: If authorization information exists in a SQL database, it might be possible to modify this information by successfully exploiting a SQL Injection vulnerability.
• Integrity: While it might be possible to see sensitive information, it’s also possible to modify or delete it using a SQL Injection attack.

Risk Elements

You can choose to affect the following platforms:

• Language for SQL
• Platform (requires interaction with a SQL database).

SQL Injection is a very common problem for database-driven websites mostly because there is plenty of documentation on the flaws, making them easy to identify and exploit. As such, any website or software package that has even a small user base will likely be the target of an attempted attack.

The attack involves inserting a metacharacter in data input and then placing SQL commands into the control plane. This is essentially what the attack does. This flaw is because SQL does not distinguish between the data and control planes.

Prevention of SQL Injection Attack

There are many effective ways to protect against SQLI preventing attacks from happening.

The first step is input validation (a.k.a. sanitization). Basically, it involves writing code that can detect illegitimate user inputs. Although input validation is the best practice, it’s not always a perfect solution. In most cases, it is not possible to map all legal and illegal inputs. This can cause a lot of false positives that interfere with the user experience.

Another alternative is a web application firewall (WAF). A WAF protects against SQLI and other online threats. It relies on a large and continuously updated list of carefully crafted signatures to surgically eliminate malicious SQL queries. Like an anti-virus, WAF is regularly updated to add blocking rules to protect against newly discovered vulnerabilities.

Additionally, you can integrate many modern web application firewalls with other security products. A WAF may also receive additional information to enhance its security capabilities. A web application firewall may, for example, cross-verify suspicious inputs with IP data before blocking them. If the IP has a poor reputation, it will block the input.

Imperva is a cloud-based WAF that uses signature recognition, IP reputation, and other security methods to block SQL injections. There are very few false positives. IncapRules, a custom security rule engine, allows for fine customization of default security settings and the creation of additional security policies specific to each case while enhancing the WAF’s capabilities.

Another application is Crowdsourcing. WAF uses this application to ensure that any new threat targeting any user is immediately propagated throughout the entire user base. This allows for rapid response to newly disclosed vulnerabilities and zero-day threats.