How does a SQL Injection Work? | Glossary | Contrast Security (2024)

FAQs

How does a SQL Injection Work? | Glossary | Contrast Security? ›

A Structured Query Language (SQL) injection attack consists of an insertion or injection of a SQL query via the input data from the client to the application. SQL commands are injected into data-plane input that affect the execution of predefined SQL commands.

This is how SQL injections (or SQLI) happen. The hacker inputs, or injects, malicious SQL code — a form of malware known as the payload — on the website and fools it into delivering that code to its database as a legitimate query. Hackers use SQL injection attacks to get inside a website's database.

SQL Injection is a code-based vulnerability that allows an attacker to read and access sensitive data from the database. Attackers can bypass security measures of applications and use SQL queries to modify, add, update, or delete records in a database.

SQL injection attacks allow attackers to spoof identity, tamper with existing data, cause repudiation issues such as voiding transactions or changing balances, allow the complete disclosure of all data on the system, destroy the data or make it otherwise unavailable, and become administrators of the database server.

Take for example: the input field of a form (username/password combo) on a website, where an attacker enters "' OR 1=1;". This specific string is added at the end of an SQL query. When this query is executed, it allows the attacker to bypass authentication without knowledge of the password.

SQL injection (SQLi) is a cyberattack that injects malicious SQL code into an application, allowing the attacker to view or modify a database. According to the Open Web Application Security Project, injection attacks, which include SQL injections, were the third most serious web application security risk in 2021.

SQL injection attacks harness the power of code for malicious purposes, usually by infiltrating the backend of an application or webpage to view, alter or delete information. This might include sensitive company data, valuable assets or customer details. The resulting data breach can have severe consequences.

SQL injection, also known as SQLI, is a common attack vector that uses malicious SQL code for backend database manipulation to access information that was not intended to be displayed. This information may include any number of items, including sensitive company data, user lists or private customer details.

SQL injection usually occurs when you ask a user for input, like their username/userid, and instead of a name/id, the user gives you an SQL statement that you will unknowingly run on your database.

In conclusion, SQL injections are a critical security vulnerability that allows attackers to bypass authentication, extract sensitive data, and execute malicious code on a target database. It occurs when an attacker inserts malicious code into an input field, such as a login form. The database then executes that.

What is most vulnerable to SQL injection attacks? ›

Some of the most vulnerable parts of web applications to common attacks are: Input fields - Places where user input is accepted and processed. Things like search fields, comment fields, etc. These are prone to SQL injection attacks and XSS (cross-site scripting).

130 million credit card numbers stolen. A team of attackers used SQL injection to penetrate corporate systems at several companies, primarily the 7-Eleven retail chain, stealing 130 million credit card numbers.

In-band SQL injection is the most frequent and commonly used SQL injection attack. The transfer of data used in in-band attacks can either be done through error messages on the web or by using the UNION operator in SQL statements.

Allows an attacker to send code to a web application, which will later be executed locally by the web server. In this type of attack, an attacker exploits the failure of the web application to filter data provided by users before it inserts that data into a server-side interpreted HTML file.

In SQL Injection, the UNION operator is commonly used to attach a malicious SQL query to the original query intended to be run by the web application. The result of the injected query will be joined with the result of the original query. This allows the attacker to obtain column values from other tables.

If you were to conduct a Google search on “SQL Injection,” you'd discover that nearly every resource discussing this technique uses “OR 1=1” as the primary example. The celebration of “OR 1=1” injection mainly revolves around two scenarios: login bypass and search function exploitation.

Can SQL Injection be traced? Most SQL Injection Vulnerabilities and attacks can be reliably and swiftly traced through a number of credible SQL Injection tools or some web vulnerability scanner. SQL Injection detection is not such a trying task, but most developers make errors.