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SQL Injection Attacks Outline

1. Define SQL injection

• In computer security, SQL injection is an approach that attackers use in manipulating the database systems utilizing malicious statements.
• Attackers identify weaknesses in a given application that uses SQL database frameworks to manipulate the normal execution to access internal resources.
• This attack allows attackers to access internal data, which may influence integrity. Deletion, addition and manipulation are common in such an incident (Katole, Sherekar & Thakare, 2018).

2. Identify common SQL injection attacks and explain what each attack does

• There are three primary types of SQL injection attacks. These attacks happen depending on the security status of the underlying information systems.
  • In-band SQLi
    • This attack is one of the easiest and simplest approaches that allow attackers to gather insight from a given system.
    • Attackers utilize a common channel in targeting a given information system.
    • In this attack, it is essential to understand the variations used in data collection.
      • Error based SQLi targets the database in such a way that the malicious code used generates an error.
      • The union based attack is where the attacker exploits the internal SQL operators like UNION to generate a common HTTP response.
  • Inferential SQLi
    • In this attack, attackers send payloads to the target web servers for learning purposes. These attacks can be:
      • Time-based
        • Time-based attacks are where attackers send queries to a given database. The database waits for a specified duration before reacting to the received queries. The attacker relies on the received HTTP response to determine the outcomes from the database.
      • Boolean
        • In Boolean attacks, the attackers submit SQL queries to a database where the transaction is executed instantly. The server returns an HTTP response with true or false outcomes.
  • Out of band SQLi
    • This attack only happens when certain features are available on the target database. Therefore, attackers use this approach as an alternative to the previous attacks.
    • In this attack, attackers access the target database or servers using multiple information collection and communication channels.

3. Identify SQL injection detection techniques
   1. SQL injections can be detected through various approaches.
      1. Network administrators can use applications and web-based firewalls to detect SQL injections (Appelt, Panichella & Briand, 2017).
      2. Web vulnerability scanning
      3. Vulnerability and penetration testing
4. Identify countermeasures to SQL injection
   1. SQL injections can be prevented and reduced through various interventions.
      1. Validating user inputs
      2. Sanitizing data through limiting certain characters used in SQL injection
      3. Utilize stored procedures
      4. Install physical and virtual firewalls
5. Describe the effectiveness of the SQL injection countermeasures you identified
   1. These countermeasures are effective since they eliminate the potential of attackers exploiting known vulnerabilities.
   2. Firewalls prevent malicious traffic from flowing into a given network.
   3. Sanitization and user input validation ensures that only the correct information is provided at the capturing forms (Ghafarian, 2017).
   4. Likewise, using stored procedures eliminates the potential of the underlying servers and databases executing external code. This approach eliminates the potential of attackers exploiting the internal SQL commands and functions to launch their attacks.