Reply To: OCU C)SP A Week 02 Lesson 04 Discussion
Injection Flaws
What is it?
Imagine you’re giving commands to a robot by writing them down. Now, if someone sneaks in and adds extra commands to your list without you noticing, the robot will execute them. Similarly, in the digital world, injection flaws happen when attackers can sneak malicious data into a system, which gets processed as commands.
Why is it critical?
Wide Applicability: Many applications interact with databases or other systems by sending commands. If not done securely, it can be a loophole.
Severe Impact: Successful injection can give attackers access to unauthorized data, corrupt data, or even take control of the system.
Common Occurrence: Due to the widespread use of input in web applications and often lack of proper validation, this flaw is prevalent.
How to prevent it?
Validation: Always validate and sanitize any data being entered by users.
Prepared Statements: Instead of dynamically constructing commands, use prepared statements which ensure that the input data is always treated as data and never as a command.
It’s like making sure that when you’re having a conversation, the other person can’t suddenly take control and make you say or do things you didn’t intend. It’s important to keep those boundaries clear and secure.
Reference:
OWASP. “OWASP Top 10:2021.” OWASP, 2021, owasp.org/Top10/.
