Learn what is SQL Injection? Is it harmful to my network and personal information?
What Is SQL Injection?
SQL Injection is an attack in which the malicious user can gain access to the system with administrator rights. It will have the ability to modify data in your database. To do this, the attacker must insert malicious SQL statements into a form field.
For example, username or password. SQL Injection is one of the most common attacks that use insecure Web applications. SWG (SQL WAF) works by inspecting the HTTP traffic between clients and servers. Thus, blocking SQL injection attacks from reaching their intended target.
SWG takes a look at all of the queries sent from each client to all of its network’s servers. It then compares these queries to a set of rules containing SQL injection patterns (or “signatures”). If a rule is matched, SWG blocks the request and returns an error message to the client, informing them that their query has been blocked due to security concerns.
Policy Solution Prevention
SWG is not an intrusion prevention system (IPS), it is a “prevention by policy” solution. It is designed to be deployed in front of applications that are exposed to the Internet. This protects them from various types of attacks such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), directory traversal, etc.
It protects against SQL Injection attacks through signature-based detection and blocking techniques on HTTP requests. It’s worth noting that it is not uncommon for an attacker to try multiple queries against an application until they find one that works. As such, even if a request does not match any signatures for known attacks, it may still be blocked.
That is if it exhibits behaviors that are suspicious or indicative of a malicious code attempt. So, this may include excessive or malformed parameters in queries. Also, it includes certain types of string escaping/unescaping techniques used by browsers when submitting forms.
SWG is an agentless solution that is easy to install, configure and maintain. It works in front of HTTP servers, blocking malicious requests that are targeting applications. SWG can protect the application from many types of attacks, including SQL injection (SQLi), cross-site scripting (XSS), and directory traversal.
How Does SWG Mitigation Work?
To understand how SWG works, it is important to understand what SQL Injection is and how it works. SQLi occurs when an attacker can enter arbitrary SQL statements into a form field. So, this is such as a username or password field to send them to the server for execution.
A successful SQLi attack can allow the attacker to gain access to your network and personal information.
SQL Injection can be divided into two main stages. Once an attacker has identified a vulnerable website, they will attempt one of these techniques in hopes of gaining access to the server.
If they are successful, they may be able to access sensitive information such as usernames and passwords. Then it could then use this information to gain further access to your network. With access to your network, they can potentially steal other user credentials or install malicious software.