Attack Technique
SQL injection
SQL injection is one of the most common and dangerous techniques used by cyber attackers. Here’s what you need to know to protect your organization against SQL injection attacks.
Definition
What is SQL injection?
SQL injection, also known as SQLi, is a common attack technique that involves inserting malicious SQL code into a database to gain unauthorized access to sensitive data.
A successful attack allows the attacker to view and manipulate your data by executing unauthorized SQL commands into the database. The attacker might even gain full control over the application’s backend to destroy your database altogether.
Types of SQL injection attacks
There are several types of SQL Injection attacks, each with different methods and goals:
- In-band SQL injection (Classic SQLi) is the most common type of SQLi. With this method, the attacker uses the same communication channel to both inject malicious SQL queries and receive the results. For example, the attacker might exploit your company’s web forms to retrieve database records.
- Blind SQL injection lets the attacker infer information from the behavior of the server or application, such as different error messages or response times. For example, the attacker might craft queries that cause delays if certain conditions (like true/false statements) are met, helping them understand the structure of the database.
- Error-based SQL injection exploits database error messages to reveal details about the structure of the database, which can assist in refining the attack.
- Out-of-band SQL injection attacks occur when the attacker can’t get a response with normal web communication and instead relies on different methods, like DNS or HTTP requests, to extract data. This is the least common type of SQLi.
How it works
How SQL injection works
In SQL injection attacks, malicious actors exploit poor input validation and inadequate query handling in web applications. They do this by altering SQL queries, often in ways that allow them to bypass authentication and log in without knowing actual usernames and passwords.
Why attackers use it
Why attackers use SQL injection
Attackers use SQL injection because it allows them to exploit vulnerabilities in web applications to gain unauthorized access to databases. SQL injection is a type of security flaw that occurs when an application does not properly sanitize user input, enabling attackers to inject malicious SQL statements into queries that the application executes. This can lead to severe consequences, such as data theft, data manipulation, and even complete control over the affected database.
Here are the primary reasons why attackers leverage SQL injection:
- Data Theft: By injecting malicious SQL code, attackers can retrieve sensitive information like user credentials, personal data, financial records, and proprietary business information stored in the database.
- Data Manipulation: Attackers can alter, insert, or delete data within the database. This can disrupt business operations, corrupt data integrity, and damage the reputation of the organization.
- Authentication Bypass: SQL injection can be used to bypass login mechanisms, allowing attackers to access user accounts without valid credentials, including administrative accounts with higher privileges.
- Privilege Escalation: Once inside, attackers can escalate their access rights, gaining more control over the system and accessing additional sensitive information.
- Denial of Service (DoS): Malicious SQL queries can overwhelm the database server, leading to performance degradation or complete service outages.
- Server Takeover: In some cases, SQL injection can be exploited to execute commands on the host server, potentially allowing attackers to take full control of the server environment.
- Reconnaissance: Attackers can gather information about the database structure, such as table names and column types, which can be used for further exploitation.
Why SQL Injection is Attractive to Attackers:
- Prevalence of Vulnerabilities: Many web applications lack proper input validation and sanitization, making SQL injection a common vulnerability that attackers can easily find and exploit.
- High Impact with Low Effort: Exploiting SQL injection can have significant consequences with relatively minimal effort. Automated tools are available that scan for and exploit these vulnerabilities.
- Access to Critical Data: Databases often store valuable information that can be monetized or used for identity theft, fraud, and other malicious activities.
- Difficulty in Detection: SQL injection attacks can be hard to detect, especially if the attacker is skilled at mimicking legitimate queries and access patterns.
Platform Detections
How to prevent and detect SQL injection attacks
Preventing SQL injection requires a combination of secure coding practices, proper input validation, defensive database configurations, and AI-driven detections. Best practices include:
- Prepared statements (parameterized queries): Prepared statements ensure user inputs are treated as data rather than executable code. This is one of the most effective defenses against SQL Injection.
- Stored procedures: Using stored procedures in your database allows predefined SQL code to run, which can limit the injection surface. However, stored procedures need to be properly written to be safe from SQLi.
- Input validation and sanitization: Treat all user input as untrusted until carefully validated. For example, ensure that fields expecting numbers receive only numbers and reject any input containing SQL keywords like SELECT, DROP, or INSERT.
- Least privilege principle: Give accounts that connect to the database the least amount of privileges needed. For example, if an application only needs to read from the database, it should not have permissions to modify or delete data.
- Escaping user inputs: Escaping special characters in user inputs ensures it's treated as a string literal, rather than executable, code.
Regular security audits: Regularly scanning applications for vulnerabilities helps catch SQL Injection flaws before they’re exploited.
How Vectra AI detects SQL attacks
Vectra AI uses advanced AI and machine learning to detect behaviors that indicate SQL injection attacks. By continuously monitoring network traffic and application logs, the SQL Injection Activity detection automatically finds and flags anomalies such as:
- Unusual database queries: Monitoring for unexpected or malformed SQL queries can be a strong indicator of an SQL Injection attack in progress.
- Unusual user behavior: Suspicious activity, such as repetitive queries that look like blind SQL Injection attempts or sudden bursts of database queries, are often a sign of automated attacks.
The Vectra AI platform alerts security teams to SQLi attacks early in their projection, allowing you to respond rapidly — before critical data or systems are compromised. Combined with a solid SQLi prevention strategy, these advanced detections significantly reduce your risk of attack.
