The loopholes that exists in the use of these technologies results in some of the worst hack attacks and security breaches ever experienced in the field of web design. The internet is bustling with a lot of activities. Some of the activities that are officiated over the internet are very sensitive due to both the nature of the information exchanged or even the information stored in the database.
It is paramount that websites be provided with secure and personalized databases. One inevitable fact however is that once a site is deployed on the internet, it becomes a resource to be accessed by everyone as postulated by Kabir
Secure website development is of the utmost importance as the number of websites that provide personalized accounts and utilize cross site information. "When you deploy your application on the Web, it becomes available to everyone" (Kabir 737)
In order to fully prescribe a viable solution to be used in tackling the various forms of security threats associated with the use of trending technologies such as PHP and MySQL, it is paramount to understand the mechanisms through which the security threats are orchestrated. Below is a discussion of the general techniques employed by hackers in gaining access to different websites that are developed using the PHP and MySQL, mix
Query String Manipulation
In a query string manipulation, is a hacker passes a set of values that are passed through a browser's address bar. This form of attack appears on site that provides services of some sort. Query String Manipulation can be extremely detrimental in poorly planned and programmed website. It provides an easy access point for a hacker to gain access to the database via referred to as SQL Injection, which leads to root access to the machine and then to the subsequent access to various parts of the websites source code.
Implications
The meaning and implication of this type of attack is that the hacker gains root access to the entire computer and is he or she only gets limited the access level restrictions provided to the web server, a level which is in fact an administrative. This gives the hacker an express permission to modify and even delete files that reside on the machine. The hacker also gains access to the machine's database and all of the data that exist in the database. This is true in the case of web server and database server not being on the same machine.
The possibility of a hacker gaining access to a machine's source code presents him or her with an opportunity to orchestrate devious actions such as website defacement. An interaction with a websites source code also give a revelation of the site's database design and schema (Wood,2004). This could then lead to an easy access to the websites' database and a possible change to its content.
This kind of PHP and MySQL website attack is as a result of to an improperly used and handled query string. The major source of common mistake is the trusting of inputs that originate from the query string as valid. Such a mistake would lead a hacker to interfere with the query string in order to get the information they require. The query string must therefore be validated accordingly and then appropriately verified every time in order in the process of creating and accessing of data. Query string must therefore bee tested for both existence and utmost validity.
Root level access with the administrator privileges can be gained because the server wasn't set up properly. Normally a server should be set to run with the least amount of privileges required by the server to perform its duties. One should determine the appropriate level of access a server will have before a website is developed.
Illustration
When one creates a link that has a query string variable needed to be passed to the next page. This variable is referred to as ID. If one uses this variable to access information from the database then a test for its safety should be carried out.
This test is done by means of the isset () function, which is arguably the simplest method. This allows one to move the back to the previous page whenever the value is present. Then if the variable exists one should then carry out a test to find out if its value has been interfered with. The ID is supposed to be contained in a numeric field only so we on should carry out an examination on the value which has a regular expression.
PHP gives a perfectly good...
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