Primary Defenses to SQL Injection

SQL Injection flaws are introduced when software developers create dynamic database queries that include user supplied input. To avoid SQL injection flaws is simple. Developers need to either:a) stop writing dynamic queries; and/orb) prevent user supplied input which contains malicious SQL from affecting the logic of the executed query.

This article provides a set of simple techniques for preventing SQL Injection vulnerabilities by avoiding these two problems. These techniques can be used with practically any kind of programming language with any type of database. There are other types of databases, like XML databases, which can have similar problems (e.g., XPath and XQuery injection) and these techniques can be used to protect them as well.

Primary Defenses:

    Option #1: Use of Prepared Statements (Parameterized Queries)
    Option #2: Use of Stored Procedures
    Option #3: Escaping all User Supplied Input

Additional Defenses:

    Also Enforce: Least Privilege
    Also Perform: White List Input Validation

Unsafe Example

SQL injection flaws typically look like this:

The following (Java) example is UNSAFE, and would allow an attacker to inject code into the query that would be executed by the database. The unvalidated “customerName” parameter that is simply appended to the query allows an attacker to inject any SQL code they want. Unfortunately, this method for accessing databases is all too common.

 String query = "SELECT account_balance FROM user_data WHERE user_name = "
   + request.getParameter("customerName");
 
 try {
     Statement statement = connection.createStatement( … );http://write.blog.csdn.net/postedit
     ResultSet results = statement.executeQuery( query );
 }


Primary Defenses
Defense Option 1: Prepared Statements (Parameterized Queries)

The use of prepared statements (aka parameterized queries) is how all developers should first be taught how to write database queries. They are simple to write, and easier to understand than dynamic queries. Parameterized queries force the developer to first define all the SQL code, and then pass in each parameter to the query later. This coding style allows the database to distinguish between code and data, regardless of what user input is supplied.

Prepared statements ensure that an attacker is not able to change the intent of a query, even if SQL commands are inserted by an attacker. In the safe example below, if an attacker were to enter the userID of tom' or '1'='1, the parameterized query would not be vulnerable and would instead look for a username which literally matched the entire string tom' or '1'='1.

Language specific recommendations:

    Java EE – use PreparedStatement() with bind variables
    .NET – use parameterized queries like SqlCommand() or OleDbCommand() with bind variables
    PHP – use PDO with strongly typed parameterized queries (using bindParam())
    Hibernate - use createQuery() with bind variables (called named parameters in Hibernate)
    SQLite - use sqlite3_prepare() to create a statement object

In rare circumstances, prepared statements can harm performance. When confronted with this situation, it is best to escape all user supplied input using an escaping routine specific to your database vendor as is described below, rather than using a prepared statement. Another option which might solve your performance issue is to use a stored procedure instead.

Safe Java Prepared Statement Example

The following code example uses a PreparedStatement, Java's implementation of a parameterized query, to execute the same database query.

 String custname = request.getParameter("customerName"); // This should REALLY be validated too
 // perform input validation to detect attacks
 String query = "SELECT account_balance FROM user_data WHERE user_name = ? ";
 
 PreparedStatement pstmt = connection.prepareStatement( query );
 pstmt.setString( 1, custname);
 ResultSet results = pstmt.executeQuery( );


Developers tend to like the Prepared Statement approach because all the SQL code stays within the application. This makes your application relatively database independent. However, other options allow you to store all the SQL code in the database itself, which has both security and non-security advantages. That approach, called Stored Procedures, is described next.


Defense Option 2: Stored Procedures

Stored procedures have the same effect as the use of prepared statements when implemented safely*. They require the developer to define the SQL code first, and then pass in the parameters after. The difference between prepared statements and stored procedures is that the SQL code for a stored procedure is defined and stored in the database itself, and then called from the application. Both of these techniques have the same effectiveness in preventing SQL injection so your organization should choose which approach makes the most sense for you.

*Note: 'Implemented safely' means the stored procedure does not include any unsafe dynamic SQL generation. Developers do not usually generate dynamic SQL inside stored procedures. However, it can be done, but should be avoided. If it can't be avoided, the stored procedure must use input validation or proper escaping as described in this article to make sure that all user supplied input to the stored procedure can't be used to inject SQL code into the dynamically generated query. Auditors should always look for uses of sp_execute, execute or exec within SQL Server stored procedures. Similar audit guidelines are necessary for similar functions for other vendors.

Safe Java Stored Procedure Example

The following code example uses a CallableStatement, Java's implementation of the stored procedure interface, to execute the same database query. The "sp_getAccountBalance" stored procedure would have to be predefined in the database and implement the same functionality as the query defined above.

 String custname = request.getParameter("customerName"); // This should REALLY be validated
 try {
     CallableStatement cs = connection.prepareCall("{call sp_getAccountBalance(?)}");
     cs.setString(1, custname);
     ResultSet results = cs.executeQuery();        
     // … result set handling
 } catch (SQLException se) {            
     // … logging and error handling
 }

Defense Option 3: Escaping All User Supplied Input

This third technique is to escape user input before putting it in a query. If you are concerned that rewriting your dynamic queries as prepared statements or stored procedures might break your application or adversely affect performance, then this might be the best approach for you. However, this methodology is frail compared to using parameterized queries and we cannot guarantee it will prevent all SQL Injection in all situations. This technique should only be used, with caution, to retrofit legacy code in a cost effective way. Applications built from scratch, or applications requiring low risk tolerance should be built or re-written using parameterized queries.

This technique works like this. Each DBMS supports one or more character escaping schemes specific to certain kinds of queries. If you then escape all user supplied input using the proper escaping scheme for the database you are using, the DBMS will not confuse that input with SQL code written by the developer, thus avoiding any possible SQL injection vulnerabilities.

• Full details on ESAPI are available here on OWASP.
• The javadoc for ESAPI is available here at its Google Code repository.
• You can also directly browse the source at Google, which is frequently helpful if the javadoc isn't perfectly clear.

To find the javadoc specifically for the database encoders, click on the ‘Codec’ class on the left hand side. There are lots of Codecs implemented. The two Database specific codecs are OracleCodec, and MySQLCodec.

Just click on their names in the ‘All Known Implementing Classes:’ at the top of the Interface Codec page.

Additional Defenses

Beyond adopting one of the three primary defenses, we also recommend adopting all of these additional defenses in order to provide defense in depth. These additional defenses are:

• Least Privilege
• White List Input Validation

Least Privilege

To minimize the potential damage of a successful SQL injection attack, you should minimize the privileges assigned to every database account in your environment. Do not assign DBA or admin type access rights to your application accounts. We understand that this is easy, and everything just ‘works’ when you do it this way, but it is very dangerous. Start from the ground up to determine what access rights your application accounts require, rather than trying to figure out what access rights you need to take away. Make sure that accounts that only need read access are only granted read access to the tables they need access to. If an account only needs access to portions of a table, consider creating a view that limits access to that portion of the data and assigning the account access to the view instead, rather than the underlying table. Rarely, if ever, grant create or delete access to database accounts.

If you adopt a policy where you use stored procedures everywhere, and don’t allow application accounts to directly execute their own queries, then restrict those accounts to only be able to execute the stored procedures they need. Don’t grant them any rights directly to the tables in the database.

SQL injection is not the only threat to your database data. Attackers can simply change the parameter values from one of the legal values they are presented with, to a value that is unauthorized for them, but the application itself might be authorized to access. As such, minimizing the privileges granted to your application will reduce the likelihood of such unauthorized access attempts, even when an attacker is not trying to use SQL injection as part of their exploit.

While you are at it, you should minimize the privileges of the operating system account that the DBMS runs under. Don't run your DBMS as root or system! Most DBMSs run out of the box with a very powerful system account. For example, MySQL runs as system on Windows by default! Change the DBMS's OS account to something more appropriate, with restricted privileges.

White List Input Validation

Input validation can be used to detect unauthorized input before it is passed to the SQL query.
It is always recommended to prevent attacks as early as possible in the processing of the user’s (attacker's) request. Input validation can be used to detect unauthorized input before it is processed by the application. Developers frequently perform black list validation in order to try to detect attack characters and patterns like the ' character, the string 1=1, or the <script> tag, but this is a massively flawed approach as it is typically trivial for an attacker to avoid getting caught by such filters. Plus, such filters frequently prevent authorized input, like O'Brian, when the ' character is being filtered out.

White list validation is appropriate for all input fields provided by the user. White list validation involves defining exactly what IS authorized, and by definition, everything else is not authorized. If it's well structured data, like dates, social security numbers, zip codes, e-mail addresses, etc. then the developer should be able to define a very strong validation pattern, usually based on regular expressions, for validating such input. If the input field comes from a fixed set of options, like a drop down list or radio buttons, then the input needs to match exactly one of the values offered to the user in the first place. The most difficult fields to validate are so called 'free text' fields, like blog entries. However, even those types of fields can be validated to some degree, you can at least exclude all non-printable characters, and define a maximum size for the input field.

Developing regular expressions can be complicated, and is well beyond the scope of this cheat sheet. There are lots of resources on the internet about how to write regular expressions, including: http://www.regular-expressions.info/ and the OWASP Validation Regex Repository. The following provides a few examples of ‘white list’ style regular expressions:

White List Regular Expression Examples

Validating a Zip Code (5 digits plus optional -4)

^\d{5}(-\d{4})?$

Validating U.S. State Selection From a Drop-Down Menu

^(AA|AE|AP|AL|AK|AS|AZ|AR|CA|CO|CT|DE|DC|FM|FL|GA|GU|
HI|ID|IL|IN|IA|KS|KY|LA|ME|MH|MD|MA|MI|MN|MS|MO|MT|NE| 
NV|NH|NJ|NM|NY|NC|ND|MP|OH|OK|OR|PW|PA|PR|RI|SC|SD|TN|
TX|UT|VT|VI|VA|WA|WV|WI|WY)$

Java Regex Usage Example

 Example validating the parameter “zip” using a regular expression.
 
 private static final Pattern zipPattern = Pattern.compile("^\d{5}(-\d{4})?$");
 public void doPost( HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response) {
 	try {
 		String zipCode = request.getParameter( "zip" );
 		if ( !zipPattern.matcher( zipCode ).matches()  {
 			throw new YourValidationException( "Improper zipcode format." );
 		}
 		.. do what you want here, after its been validated ..
 	} catch(YourValidationException e ) {
 		response.sendError( response.SC_BAD_REQUEST, e.getMessage() );
 	}
 }

Some white list validators have also been predefined in various open source packages that you can leverage. For example:

• Apache Commons Validator