Editorials

SQL Injection … It’s Continuing – but How Do You Recover?

by Ben Taylor

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SQL Injection … It’s Continuing – but How Do You Recover?
If you’ve been the subject of a successful SQL Injection attack or, if, ahem, you know someone who has been, what were the steps you took to recover your systems? Were you able to come up with a system of steps that helped you understand the scope of the attack, then correct the things that were done and get your corrected systems back online?

I suspect it’s very similar to any type of database issue, really. You have several things you need to determine:

– What happened
– What was impacted
– What recovery options do you have
– Full restore
– Object restore
– Manual recovery of data
– "Intervention" – fix things by updating values in your tables where you see patterns of the attack existing

Are there other steps you take, or have heard of others taking, that help move this process along? I can think of one other step that’s key:

– How do you prevent it from happening again…

Your approach?

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Author: Ben TaylorBen is a Relational Database veteran starting in the early eighties on DEC Vax database systems such as Bloom and Harvest. He has specialized in SQL engines for more than two decades, with a primary focus on Microsoft SQL Server. Ben has worked with small and large databases for both OLAP and OLTP working on systems for many industries such as Medical (Medical Claims and Eligibility Warehouse, HMO Provider Management, Enrollment), Financial (credit card processing, mortgage, stock portfolio management), Manufacturing (Assembly Line and Product Assemblies), Sales, Auto Auctions and more.