We have all heard about cybercriminals and the havoc they create for online businesses and corporations. In the last few years, we have seen a new generation rising to the digital forefront. Hacktivists… they are the digital activists of this era and have just started making their presence known. With social media and a wide internet infrastructure, IT savvy hacktivists make their passionate opinions known on social and political issues on a global scale. They hack their way into government operated websites with the intent of shutting them down or exploiting content that would aid in their cause.

Arguably, the most dangerous part of hacktivism is the intent. Many do fight for social and political change but there are entities only interested in personal and financial gain.

 What does this mean for the multi-national or even local business (with an online presence) in Australia? Web application security has become an even important component that should never be overlooked. SQL injections are the second thing that mustn’t be ignored when making your website or web application more secure.

SQL Injections - Most Common Type of Hack Attack

There are plenty of reasons why attackers prefer hacking into a web application with the help of SQL injections. This attack allows hacktivists or malicious attackers to inject their own commands into databases. Such databases are usually not configured properly for attack detection which makes it easier for hackers to obtain access to information on the database.

Damages Caused By SQL Injection

Given the right circumstances, an attacker can leverage SQL injection vulnerability by bypassing web application’s authentication and authorization process completely. This makes it easier to retrieve information even for an entire database! Additionally, hackers can also add, modify, and delete from sensitive information and records.   

Online businesses must know about the 3 main categories of SQL injection attacks against databases to devise an effective web application security strategy. They are:

SQL Manipulation

This is a process where SQL statements are modified with the help of operations like UNION. Changing clause of SQL statement is another way to inject this vulnerability through SQL manipulation. Different results are derived from this SQL manipulation method.  

Code Injection

It’s a process of inserting new SQL statements (or database commands) into an already vulnerable SQL statement. There are many different strategies used by hackers to achieve malicious code injection. The most commonly used is to write SQL server EXECUTE command at the end of the vulnerable SQL statement. This type of SQL attack can only take place if multiple SQL statements are supported per database request.

Buffer Overflows

This is caused by using function call injection. Additionally, patches are available for most of open source and commercial databases, which are important for a server’s security. This type of SQL injection attack happens when server is un-patched.

Protecting your web application against such vulnerabilities should be every business’s highest priority. As such, you must know where to look when searching for the best managed service provider for your business’s online application. Lean Security is a good option and here’s why!