Types of SQL Injection

Error based Injection:

The attacker sends some malicious query to the database which results in errors. The errors should be very generic, otherwise, they may give useful hints to the attacker.

Comment-Line: Using comment line to cause the database to ignore a part of a valid query.

E.g. Select * from stores where product_id = blah’ or 1=1-- (everything after this will be neglected)

Tautology: There are a lot of strings which always evaluates to be true, like ‘1’ = ‘1’ ‘a’ = ‘a’, etc., using them in the query to create constantly true conditions.

E.g. Select * from users where username=’blah’ or ‘a’=’a’ -- and password=’pass’

Union Based SQL injection:

Using union command in SQL query to execute additional queries; thereby, modifying/inserting/deleting or dropping the contents of the table.

E.g. Select * from stores where product_id=1 union select 1,database(),user(),4#

Stored procedures: Creating malicious inputs to execute malicious queries.

Incorrect queries: Coming up with logically incorrect queries to see the error messages to get more information about the target database.

Select * from stores where id=1’

The above query will result in a syntax error and might reveal the backend database type.

Blind SQL injection:

This is a type of SQL injection where we don’t have a clue as to whether the web application is vulnerable to injection attack or not.

Types:

Boolean: Only correct queries show the result, wrong queries do not return anything. Attackers should try to generate logically correct queries.

If suppose the original query to the database is

Select * from users where id=’id.txt’

If we give blah’ and 1=1# as input which evaluates to be a right query

Select * from users where id=’blah’ or 1=1#, we will see the user results.

If we give blah’ and 1=2# as input which is a wrong query then we don’t see any results.

Select * from users where id=’blah’ or 1=2#

Time delay: Depending on some conditions, setting a time delay. If that condition is satisfied, we can observe the time delay; thereby, concluding that the input we gave produced a positive result. This is a time consuming process.

Tools:

SQLMAP, Marathon tool.

Perimeter tools (IDS) Evasion Techniques:

• Use encryption.




• Obfuscate string to avoid pattern matching.




• Use Concatenation to confuse the IDS.




• Use encoding like ASCII encoding, hexadecimal encoding to avoid detection.




• Insert inline comments between query.