Goal: dynamically generate a PreparedStatement immune to SQL injection.
// This is a bad method. SQL injection danger . But it works
private PreparedStatement generateSQLBad(Connection connection, String tableName,
String columnName, String columnType) throws SQLException {
String sql = "create table " + tableName + " (" + columnName + " " + columnType + ")";
PreparedStatement create = connection.prepareStatement(sql);
return create;
}
// I tried this. But it didn't work
private PreparedStatement generateSQLGood(Connection connection, String tableName,
String columnName, String columnType) throws SQLException {
String sql = "create table ? (? ?)";
PreparedStatement create = connection.prepareStatement(sql);
create.setString(1, tableName);
create.setString(2, columnName);
create.setString(3, columnType);
return create;
}
How to dynamically generate PreparedStatement where user could choose tablename, columntype etc. and no danger of SQL injection?
You can't use ? parameter placeholders for identifiers (table names and column names). Nor can they be used for SQL keywords, like data types. Preparing a query needs to be able to validate the syntax, and validate that your table names and so on are legal. This must be done at prepare time, not at execute time. SQL doesn't allow parameters to contain syntax. They are always treated as scalar values. That's how they protect against SQL injection.
So parameters can only be used in place of scalar literals, like quoted strings or dates, or numeric values.
What to do for dynamic identifiers? As the comments suggest, the best you can do is filter the inputs so they're not going to introduce SQL injection. In a way, dynamic SQL based partially on user input is SQL injection. You just need to allow it in a controlled way.
All SQL implementations allow you to use special characters in your table names if you delimit the identifier. Standard SQL uses double-quotes for delimiters. MySQL uses back-ticks, and Microsoft SQL Server uses square brackets.
The point is that you can make strange-looking table names this way, like table names containing spaces, or punctuation, or international characters, or SQL reserved words.
CREATE TABLE "my table" ( col1 VARCHAR(20) );
CREATE TABLE "order" ( col1 VARCHAR(20) );
See also my answer to https://stackoverflow.com/a/214344/20860
But what if the table name itself contains a literal double-quote character? Then you must escape that character. Either use a double character or a backslash:
CREATE TABLE "Dwayne ""The Rock"" Johnson" ( col1 VARCHAR(20) );
CREATE TABLE "Dwayne \"The Rock\" Johnson" ( col1 VARCHAR(20) );
You could alternatively design your function to check the dynamic table name for such characters, and either strip them out or throw an exception.
But even if you make the statement safe by carefully filtering the input, this might not satisfy the checkmarx warning. SQL injection testers have no way of analyzing your custom code to be sure it filters input reliably.
You may just have to do your best to make the dynamic SQL safe, knowing that checkmarx will always complain about it. Write comments in your code explaining your safety measures to future developers who read your code.
Also write unit tests to ensure that dangerous inputs result in either safe DDL statements, or else exceptions.
Related
I am using MessageFormat.format() to create the String for my PreparedStatement. I read that using StringBuilder may be a cause of sql injection. Is it the same for MessageFormat?
the code goes like this
String SQL
= "select CT.SYS_CHANGE_OPERATION, CT.{0} as ID, t.*\n"
+ "from changetable (changes {1}, ?) as CT \n"
+ "left outer join {2} as t \n"
+ "on t.{3} = CT.{4} \n"
+ "order by CT.SYS_CHANGE_VERSION";
String finalSQL = MessageFormat.format(SQL, primaryKey, table, table, primaryKey, primaryKey);
PreparedStatement pstmt = con.prepareStatement(finalSQL);
This is not safe. MessageFormat.format just replaces the occurrences of {x} in the given string with the given objects without escaping the latter.
Therefore it is equivalent to string concatenation.
To build an SQL query that includes data from variables one should always use prepared statements.
Creating an SQL string as you do with filling in table and column names would only be unsafe (SQL injection) when the variable strings stem from some passed input.
Hence StringBuilder might even be more sound (clear) than a MessageFormat. On the other way a format is more readable.
As named placeholders would be even nicer, consider Apache Common StringSubstitutor or such.
In every case code checkers might warn for SQL injection on this.
Sometimes you can use
DatabaseMetaData metaData = connection.getMetaData();
and use table and column names for operation on the meta data.
This is a largely DB vendor independent way of JDBC to query the database.
I was wondering if there was any way to specify returned column names using prepared statements.
I am using MySQL and Java.
When I try it:
String columnNames="d,e,f"; //Actually from the user...
String name = "some_table"; //From user...
String query = "SELECT a,b,c,? FROM " + name + " WHERE d=?";//...
stmt = conn.prepareStatement(query);
stmt.setString(1, columnNames);
stmt.setString(2, "x");
I get this type of statement (printing right before execution).
SELECT a,b,c,'d,e,f' FROM some_table WHERE d='x'
I would, however, like to see:
SELECT a,b,c,d,e,f FROM some_table WHERE d='x'
I know that I cannot do this for table names, as discussed
here, but was wondering if there was some way to do it for column names.
If there is not, then I will just have to try and make sure that I sanitize the input so it doesn't lead to SQL injection vulnerabilities.
This indicates a bad DB design. The user shouldn't need to know about the column names. Create a real DB column which holds those "column names" and store the data along it instead.
And any way, no, you cannot set column names as PreparedStatement values. You can only set column values as PreparedStatement values
If you'd like to continue in this direction, you need to sanitize the column names (to avoid SQL Injection) and concatenate/build the SQL string yourself. Quote the separate column names and use String#replace() to escape the same quote inside the column name.
Prepare a whitelist of allowed column names. Use the 'query' to look up in the whitelist to see if the column name is there. If not, reject the query.
For MySQL prepared statements with NodeJS (mysqljs/mysql), what you need to know is that ? is for values, but if you need to escape column names, table names etc, use ?? instead.
Something like this will work:
SELECT ??, ??, ?? FROM ?? WHERE ?? < ?
Set values to ['id', 'name', 'address', 'user', 'id', 100]
I think this case can't work because the whole point of the prepared statement is to prevent the user from putting in unescaped query bits - so you're always going to have the text quoted or escaped.
You'll need to sanitize this input in Java if you want to affect the query structure safely.
Use sql injection disadvantage of Statement Interface as advantage.
Ex:
st=conn.createStatement();
String columnName="name";
rs=st.executeQuery("select "+ columnName+" from ad_org ");
public void MethodName(String strFieldName1, String strFieldName2, String strTableName)
{
//Code to connect with database
String strSQLQuery=String.format("select %s, %s from %s", strFieldName, strFieldName2, strTableName);
st=conn.createStatement();
rs=st.executeQuery(strSQLQuery);
//rest code
}
Below is the solution in java.
String strSelectString = String.format("select %s, %s from %s", strFieldName, strFieldName2, strTableName);
My query
attributes.replace(" ' ", "");
//also used SET "+attributes+"
String sql;
sql = "UPDATE diseaseinfo"
+ " SET ?=?"
+ "WHERE companyname = 'mycom' && diseaseName =?";
PreparedStatement preparedStmt = connects.prepareStatement(sql);
preparedStmt.setString(1, attributes);
preparedStmt.setString(2, attrData);
preparedStmt.setString(3, medname);
System.out.println(preparedStmt);
it is giving me an error because query set the column name in string so it become like this on causes
UPDATE diseaseinfo SET 'causes'='abc' WHERE companyname = 'mycom' and diseaseName ='fever'
and through this question I get to know that I can't add dynamic column by prepared statement: https://stackoverflow.com/a/3136049/7794329
Now, the real question comes up: suppose if I will use a simple update query like in this question: jdbc dymanic sql query with variable containg 's
It says you can't enter value with 's in your simple sql query because it will again make the query syntactical error for example :
SELECT * FROM diseaseinfo WHERE diseaseName = 'Adult Still's disease' AND name = 'add';
Here it wont execute because of ' 's on 'Adult Still's
Then it won't work with simple query. What should I do now? What to use? To set dynamic column with taking care of 's in the query.
I am not worried about SQL injection because i am working on local. And I just want my query to be executed.
Right. We can't supply identifiers as bind parameters. The name of the column has to be part of the SQL text.
We can dynamically incorporate the name of the column into the SQL text with something like this:
sql = "UPDATE diseaseinfo"
+ " SET `" + colname + "` = ?"
+ " WHERE companyname = 'mycom' AND diseaseName = ?";
And supply values for the two remaining bind parameters
preparedStmt.setString(1, attrData);
preparedStmt.setString(2, medname);
And you are absolutely correct about being concerned about SQL Injection.
Supplied as bind values, single quotes in the values of attrData and medname won't be an issue, in terms of SQL Injection.
But the example I've provided is vulnerable through incorporating the colname variable into the SQL text, if we don't have some guaranteed that colname is "safe" to include in the statement.
So we need to make the assignment of a value to colname "safe".
Several approaches we can use do that. The most secure would be a "whitelist" approach. The code can ensure that only specific allowed "safe" values get assigned to colname, before colname gets included into the SQL text.
As a simple example:
String colname;
if (attributes.equals("someexpectedvalue") {
colname = "columnname_to_be_used";
} else if (attributes.equals("someothervalid") {
colname = "valid_columname";
} else {
// unexpected/unsupported attributes value so
// handle condition or throw an exception
}
A more flexible approach is to ensure that a backtick character doesn't appear in colname. In the example, the value of colname is being escaped by enclosing it in backticks. So, as long as a backtick character doesn't appear in colname, we will prevent a supplied value from being interpreted as anything other than as an identifier.
For a more generic (and complicated) approach to using hardcoded backtick characters, we could consider making use the supportsQuotedIdentifiers and getIdentifierQuoteString methods of java.sql.DatabaseMetaData class.
(In the OP code, we don't see the datatype of contents of attributes. We see a call to a method named replace, and the arguments that are supplied to that. Assuming that attributes is a String, and that's supposed to be a column name, it's not at all clear why we would have "space single quote space" in the string, or why we need to remove that. Other than this mention, this answer doesn't address that.)
I am using jdbc PreparedStatement for data insertion.
Statement stmt = conn.prepareStatement(
"INESRT INTO" + tablename+ "("+columnString+") VALUES (?,?,?)");
tablename and columnString are something that is dynamically generated.
I've tried to parameterise tablename and columnString but they will just resolve to something like 'tablename' which will violate the syntax.
I've found somewhere online that suggest me to lookup the database to check for valid tablename/columnString, and cache it somewhere(a Hashset perhaps) for another query, but I'm looking for better performance/ quick hack that will solve the issue, perhaps a string validator/ regex that will do the trick.
Have anyone came across this issue and how do you solve it?
I am not a java-guy, so, only a theory.
You can either format dynamically added identifiers or white-list them.
Second option is way better. Because
most developers aren't familiar enough with identifiers to format them correctly. Say, to quote an identifier, which is offered in the first comment, won't make it protected at all.
there could be another attack vector, not entirely an injection, but similar: imagine there is a column in your table, an ordinary user isn't allowed to - say, called "admin". With dynamically built columnString using data coming from the client side, it's piece of cake to forge a privilege escalation.
Thus, to list all the possible (and allowed) variants in your code beforehand, and then to verify entered value against it, would be the best.
As of columnString - is consists of separate column names. Thus, to protect it, one have to verify each separate column name against a white list, and then assemble a final columnString from them.
Create a method that generates the sql string for you:
private static final String template = "insert into %s (%s) values (%s)";
private String buildStmt(String tblName, String ... colNames) {
StringJoiner colNamesJoiner = new StringJoiner(",");
StringJoiner paramsJoiner = new StringJoiner(",");
Arrays.stream(colNames).forEach(colName -> {
colNamesJoiner.add(colName);
paramsJoiner.add("?");
});
return String.format(template, tblName, colNamesJoiner.toString(), paramsJoiner.toString());
}
Then use it...
Statement stmt = conn.prepareStatement(buildStmt(tablename, [your column names]));
As an elaboration on #Anders' answer, don't use the input parameter as the name directly, but keep a properties file (or database table) that maps a set of allowed inputs to actual table names.
That way any invalid name will not lead to valid SQL (and can be caught before any SQL is generated) AND the actual names are never known outside the application, thus making it far harder to guess what would be valid SQL statements.
I think, the best approach is to get table and columns names from database or other non user input, and use parameters in prepared statement for the rest.
There are multiple solutions we can apply.
1) White List Input Validation
String tableName;
switch(PARAM):
case "Value1": tableName = "fooTable";
break;
case "Value2": tableName = "barTable";
break;
...
default : throw new InputValidationException("unexpected value provided for table name");
By doing this input validation on tableName, will allows only specified tables in the query, so it will prevents sql injection attack.
2) Bind your dynamic columnName(s) or tableName(s) with special characters as shown below
eg:
For Mysql : use back codes (`)
Select `columnName ` from `tableName `;
For MSSQL : Use double codes(" or [ ] )
select "columnName" from "tableName"; or
select [columnName] from [tableName];
Note: Before doing this you should sanitize your data with this special characters ( `, " , [ , ] )
I was wondering if there was any way to specify returned column names using prepared statements.
I am using MySQL and Java.
When I try it:
String columnNames="d,e,f"; //Actually from the user...
String name = "some_table"; //From user...
String query = "SELECT a,b,c,? FROM " + name + " WHERE d=?";//...
stmt = conn.prepareStatement(query);
stmt.setString(1, columnNames);
stmt.setString(2, "x");
I get this type of statement (printing right before execution).
SELECT a,b,c,'d,e,f' FROM some_table WHERE d='x'
I would, however, like to see:
SELECT a,b,c,d,e,f FROM some_table WHERE d='x'
I know that I cannot do this for table names, as discussed
here, but was wondering if there was some way to do it for column names.
If there is not, then I will just have to try and make sure that I sanitize the input so it doesn't lead to SQL injection vulnerabilities.
This indicates a bad DB design. The user shouldn't need to know about the column names. Create a real DB column which holds those "column names" and store the data along it instead.
And any way, no, you cannot set column names as PreparedStatement values. You can only set column values as PreparedStatement values
If you'd like to continue in this direction, you need to sanitize the column names (to avoid SQL Injection) and concatenate/build the SQL string yourself. Quote the separate column names and use String#replace() to escape the same quote inside the column name.
Prepare a whitelist of allowed column names. Use the 'query' to look up in the whitelist to see if the column name is there. If not, reject the query.
For MySQL prepared statements with NodeJS (mysqljs/mysql), what you need to know is that ? is for values, but if you need to escape column names, table names etc, use ?? instead.
Something like this will work:
SELECT ??, ??, ?? FROM ?? WHERE ?? < ?
Set values to ['id', 'name', 'address', 'user', 'id', 100]
I think this case can't work because the whole point of the prepared statement is to prevent the user from putting in unescaped query bits - so you're always going to have the text quoted or escaped.
You'll need to sanitize this input in Java if you want to affect the query structure safely.
Use sql injection disadvantage of Statement Interface as advantage.
Ex:
st=conn.createStatement();
String columnName="name";
rs=st.executeQuery("select "+ columnName+" from ad_org ");
public void MethodName(String strFieldName1, String strFieldName2, String strTableName)
{
//Code to connect with database
String strSQLQuery=String.format("select %s, %s from %s", strFieldName, strFieldName2, strTableName);
st=conn.createStatement();
rs=st.executeQuery(strSQLQuery);
//rest code
}
Below is the solution in java.
String strSelectString = String.format("select %s, %s from %s", strFieldName, strFieldName2, strTableName);