5.7-mitigation-strategies.md

5.11 Mitigation Strategies

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Mitigation Strategies

Mitigating SQL injection vulnerabilities is crucial for securing web applications. Here are some effective strategies that can be proposed to clients to address and prevent SQL injection attacks:

Prepared Statements

Description:

• What it is:

  • Prepared statements separate SQL code from user inputs by using bind variables.
  • This is considered the best solution to mitigate SQL injection.

• Implementation Example (PHP):

  $sql = "INSERT INTO test_table VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?)";
  $sql_statement = $mysqli->prepare($sql);
  $sql_statement->bind_param('dsss', $user_id, $name, $address, $email);
  $user_id = $_POST['user_id'];
  $name = $_POST['name'];
  $address = $_POST['address'];
  $email =  $_POST['email'];
  $sql_statement->execute();

Recommendation:

• Implementing prepared statements might require code refactoring but provides a robust long-term solution.

Type Casting

Description:

• What it is:

  • Type casting involves explicitly converting user inputs to a specific data type, particularly useful for integer numbers.

• Implementation Example (PHP):

  $user_id = (int) $user_id;

Recommendation:

• Type casting offers a short-term method to prevent SQL injection, especially for numeric values.

Input Validation

Description:

• What it is:

  • Input validation checks user inputs against a predefined set of rules, allowing only valid inputs.

• Implementation Example (PHP):

  if (!preg_match('|^[a-z\s-]$|i', $name)) {
      die('Please enter a valid name');
  }

Recommendation:

• Input validation acts as a good practice to supplement other security measures.
• White-list-based validation, allowing only specific characters, can enhance security.