Book Image

SQL Injection Strategies

By : Ettore Galluccio, Edoardo Caselli, Gabriele Lombari
Book Image

SQL Injection Strategies

By: Ettore Galluccio, Edoardo Caselli, Gabriele Lombari

Overview of this book

SQL injection (SQLi) is probably the most infamous attack that can be unleashed against applications on the internet. SQL Injection Strategies is an end-to-end guide for beginners looking to learn how to perform SQL injection and test the security of web applications, websites, or databases, using both manual and automated techniques. The book serves as both a theoretical and practical guide to take you through the important aspects of SQL injection, both from an attack and a defense perspective. You’ll start with a thorough introduction to SQL injection and its impact on websites and systems. Later, the book features steps to configure a virtual environment, so you can try SQL injection techniques safely on your own computer. These tests can be performed not only on web applications but also on web services and mobile applications that can be used for managing IoT environments. Tools such as sqlmap and others are then covered, helping you understand how to use them effectively to perform SQL injection attacks. By the end of this book, you will be well-versed with SQL injection, from both the attack and defense perspective.
Table of Contents (11 chapters)
1
Section 1: (No)SQL Injection in Theory
4
Section 2: SQL Injection in Practice

The injection vulnerability in non-relational repositories

The problem of injectability is strictly dependent on trusting input, which could include interpretable code. This is also true in some cases of NoSQL database systems.

Document-based databases still use formatted text to be inserted in a structured format. Most applications that use such databases rely mostly on text, be it in JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format, or in any case from user-provided input. Thus, if not adequately sanitized, specific input could trigger some issues, in a similar fashion to how these happen in SQL.

Let's for now consider a fictitious website that relies on a document-based database, MongoDB, for authentication purposes. An attacker could send an HTTP GET request, https://targetsite.org/login?user=admin&password[%24ne]=. The target website, coded using a framework of Node.js, unfortunately has a very naïve way to check for credentials. Have a look at the following code snippet...