What is SQL injection (SQLi)?

SQL injection is a web security vulnerability that allows an attacker to interfere with the queries that
an application makes to its database. It generally allows an attacker to view data that they are not
normally able to retrieve. This might include data belonging to other users, or any other data that the
application itself is able to access. In many cases, an attacker can modify or delete this data, causing
persistent changes to the application's content or behavior.

In some situations, an attacker can escalate an SQL injection attack to compromise the underlying
server or other back-end infrastructure, or perform a denial-of-service attack.

What is the impact of a successful SQL injection attack?

A successful SQL injection attack can result in unauthorized access to sensitive data, such as
passwords, credit card details, or personal user information. Many high-profile data breaches in recent
years have been the result of SQL injection attacks, leading to reputational damage and regulatory
fines. In some cases, an attacker can obtain a persistent backdoor into an organization's systems,
leading to a long-term compromise that can go unnoticed for an extended period.

SQL injection examples

There are a wide variety of SQL injection vulnerabilities, attacks, and techniques, which arise in
different situations. Some common SQL injection examples include:

• Retrieving hidden data, where you can modify an SQL query to return additional results.
• Modifying application logic, where you can change a query to interfere with the application's
logic.
• UNION attacks, where you can retrieve data from different database tables.
• Examining the database, where you can extract information about the version and structure of
the database.
• Blind SQL injection, where the results of a query you control are not returned in the
application's responses.

1. Retrieving hidden data

Consider a shopping application that displays products in different categories. When the user clicks on
the Gifts category, their browser requests the URL:

https://insecure-website.com/products?category=Gifts

This causes the application to make an SQL query to retrieve details of the relevant products from the
database:

SELECT * FROM products WHERE category = 'Gifts' AND released = 1

This SQL query asks the database to return:

• all details (*)

The application doesn't implement any defenses against SQL injection attacks, so an attacker can
construct an attack like:

https://insecure-website.com/products?category=Gifts'--

This results in the SQL query:

SELECT * FROM products WHERE category = 'Gifts'--' AND released = 1

The key thing here is that the double-dash sequence -- is a comment indicator in SQL, and means that
the rest of the query is interpreted as a comment. This effectively removes the remainder of the query,
so it no longer includes AND released = 1. This means that all products are displayed, including
unreleased products.

Going further, an attacker can cause the application to display all the products in any category,
including categories that they don't know about:

https://insecure-website.com/products?category=Gifts'+OR+1=1--

This results in the SQL query:

SELECT * FROM products WHERE category = 'Gifts' OR 1=1--' AND released = 1

The modified query will return all items where either the category is Gifts, or 1 is equal to 1.
Since 1=1 is always true, the query will return all items.

2. Subverting application logic

Consider an application that lets users log in with a username and password. If a user submits the
username wiener and the password bluecheese, the application checks the credentials by performing
the following SQL query:

SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = 'wiener' AND password = 'bluecheese'

If the query returns the details of a user, then the login is successful. Otherwise, it is rejected.

Here, an attacker can log in as any user without a password simply by using the SQL comment
sequence -- to remove the password check from the WHERE clause of the query. For example,
submitting the username administrator'-- and a blank password results in the following query:

SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = 'administrator'--' AND password = ''

This query returns the user whose username is administrator and successfully logs the attacker in as
that user.

3. Retrieving data from other database tables

In cases where the results of an SQL query are returned within the application's responses, an attacker
can leverage an SQL injection vulnerability to retrieve data from other tables within the database.
This is done using the UNION keyword, which lets you execute an additional SELECT query and
append the results to the original query.

For example, if an application executes the following query containing the user input "Gifts":

SELECT name, description FROM products WHERE category = 'Gifts'

then an attacker can submit the input:

' UNION SELECT username, password FROM users--

This will cause the application to return all usernames and passwords along with the names and
descriptions of products.

4. Examining the database

Following initial identification of an SQL injection vulnerability, it is generally useful to obtain some
information about the database itself. This information can often pave the way for further exploitation.

You can query the version details for the database. The way that this is done depends on the database
type, so you can infer the database type from whichever technique works. For example, on Oracle you
can execute:

SELECT * FROM v$version

You can also determine what database tables exist, and which columns they contain. For example, on
most databases you can execute the following query to list the tables:

SELECT * FROM information_schema.tables

Blind SQL injection vulnerabilities

Many instances of SQL injection are blind vulnerabilities. This means that the application does not
return the results of the SQL query or the details of any database errors within its responses. Blind
vulnerabilities can still be exploited to access unauthorized data, but the techniques involved are
generally more complicated and difficult to perform.

Depending on the nature of the vulnerability and the database involved, the following techniques can
be used to exploit blind SQL injection vulnerabilities:

• You can change the logic of the query to trigger a detectable difference in the application's
response depending on the truth of a single condition. This might involve injecting a new
condition into some Boolean logic, or conditionally triggering an error such as a divide-by-
zero.
• You can conditionally trigger a time delay in the processing of the query, allowing you to
infer the truth of the condition based on the time that the application takes to respond.
• You can trigger an out-of-band network interaction, using OAST techniques. This technique
is extremely powerful and works in situations where the other techniques do not. Often, you
can directly exfiltrate data via the out-of-band channel, for example by placing the data into a
DNS lookup for a domain that you control.

How to detect SQL injection vulnerabilities

SQL injection can be detected manually by using a systematic set of tests against every entry point in
the application. This typically involves:

• Submitting the single quote character ' and looking for errors or other anomalies.
• Submitting some SQL-specific syntax that evaluates to the base (original) value of the entry
point, and to a different value, and looking for systematic differences in the resulting
application responses.
• Submitting Boolean conditions such as OR 1=1 and OR 1=2, and looking for differences in
the application's responses.
• Submitting payloads designed to trigger time delays when executed within an SQL query, and
looking for differences in the time taken to respond.
• Submitting OAST payloads designed to trigger an out-of-band network interaction when
executed within an SQL query, and monitoring for any resulting interactions.

SQL injection in different parts of the query

Most SQL injection vulnerabilities arise within the WHERE clause of a SELECT query. This type of
SQL injection is generally well-understood by experienced testers.

But SQL injection vulnerabilities can in principle occur at any location within the query, and within
different query types. The most common other locations where SQL injection arises are:

• In UPDATE statements, within the updated values or the WHERE clause.