Understanding SQL Injection Attacks
SQL injection attacks are one of the oldest, most prevalent, and most dangerous vulnerabilities. It is often listed as the number one threat to web security.
If you host any information online – and especially if you conduct business with customers online through your website – then you have a database hosted somewhere on your web server. This database could contain any amount of sensitive information about you, your business, and your customers.
For example, some businesses have a database online that contains trade secrets and intellectual property. Others conduct transactions with customers, so a customer’s name, email address, mailing address, and banking information might be stored in this database.
On the surface, this sounds dangerous and scary. All that information is online? But in practice, a secure SQL database is nothing to worry about. The technology is safe and secure, in most cases.
But what happens when a vulnerability is exposed? This usually happens during a SQL injection attack.
What happens during a SQL injection attack?
Criminals are adept at using injection attacks to target SQL databases. They’ve done so for years: SQL injection attacks are one of the oldest, most prevalent, and most dangerous vulnerabilities. It is often listed as the number one threat to web security.
When a successful attack is conducted, the sensitive data in that database is scraped and copied into a file for the hackers to use as they see fit. Often, the database holding those records is altered, with records added, modified, and deleted in the database itself.
It’s a very flexible type of attack as well, which is why it is so prevalent.
What do hackers try to access with an injection attack?
A successful SQL injection attack can have very serious consequences for the victims. A hacker can use this method to do many nefarious things, such as:
- Access user credentials and impersonate other users
- Export all user data from a database
- Alter balances, void transactions, or transfer money out of a bank account
- Destroy the functionality of a particular web application
- Attack and bring down an entire internal network of a business
As you can see, a SQL injection attack can be a disaster for users and for businesses.
How do you prevent a SQL injection attack?
The point of this article is not to scare you. There is no need to operate on the internet terrified of the potential consequences. However, you do need to take this threat seriously. Failure to do so could destroy the trust in your business – and may wipe out the business itself.
Instead, your best bet is to make sure that you are adopting the latest technologies that can help you fight back against SQL injection attacks.
This might mean making sure you are using the latest version of the development environment and language that is employed on your server, as well as using verified mechanisms to develop with.
“But I’m not a developer, I’m just a small business owner!”
If you know nothing about technology and just want to put your business on a website, all of this might as well be written in Greek or Latin. Without proper technical knowledge, you may think that you are doomed to being vulnerable to SQL injection attacks.
But you don’t have to be.
With a comprehensive solution like Sectigo Web Clean, your system and its database can be continuously monitored and scanned for any active infections in your files. In other words, Web Clean will find SQL injection attacks and put a stop to them immediately.
Better yet, it does so without disrupting the functionality of your site.
This means that you have the peace of mind knowing that not only will you and your users be protected from SQL injection attacks, but none of you will have to deal with it directly. By running automatically and in the background of your system, Web Clean keeps you free to work on the rest of your business.