SQL injection (SQLi) is a form of cybersecurity attack that occurs when cybercriminals insert a malicious SQL code into a company’s backend database. The hackers’ code tricks the system into executing a command to provide criminals unauthorised access, allowing them to modify, delete and retrieve confidential data from your database. What results are costly damages to business such as data breaches or huge financial loss from manipulated data from e-commerce checkouts and credits.
With the widespread usage of SQL to manage data in relational database management systems, SQLis will continue to rank as one of the top 10 web security risks for companies.
How to Prevent SQLi?
There are various ways to protect your organisation from SQLis, ranging from preventive to corrective countermeasures. These include:
- Implementing input validation (sanitisation):
Because one of the common sources of SQLi is a malicious created external input, an effective preventive solution is accepting approved input. This is practice is known as input validation or sanitisation. Companies are encouraged to implement input validation on both the client-side and server-side. Client-side input validation provides fast feedback to users and prevents them from inputting invalid or abnormal data.
However, client-side input validation is insufficient. Companies must carry out server-side input validation as a form of additional checks.
2. Installing a web application firewall (WAF):
Investing in a robust web application firewall will help to boost your organisation’s defenses against sudden SQLi attacks. Web Application Firewalls like Polaris act as a shield for your digital assets. When installed, it scans all the incoming web traffic to your website and filters out any malicious attacks from SQL queries and blocks all suspicious IPs from interacting with your web server.
At Polaris, we go a step further in ensuring your organisation’s security. Possessing an in-built automated vulnerability scanner, Polaris will immediately detect both unknown and known vulnerabilities. Once detected, Polaris will apply virtual patches to mitigate the security gaps. Polaris also doubles up as an alert system, instantly informing you if data is stolen. This allows you to take timely action and reduce further damage.
