Preventing MySQL Injections
 

I have a database server in my office and it's also exposed to the outside world via web servers that run PHP. I was wondering how can I make sure my server is protected from SQL injections or other commonly SQL level attacks? I want to make sure my data on the server remains secure. I'm not exactly sure what happens when someone does a SQL injection but it sounds like a bad thing.

Plenty of information about what it is, and what to do about it if you look - http://www.tizag.com/mysqlTutorial/m...-injection.php for example.

Basically, write good code, and don't believe anything a user tells you.

Every SQL statement that takes a parameter should be a prepared statement with bound parameters. You never build SQL queries with string concatenation.

Here's one recent testimonal:

http://programmers.stackexchange.com...ite-what-to-do

I know this is a comic, but it is one of the best "explanations" of SQL injections I've seen.

In addition to the prepared statements, I like to sanitize all input received from the user before before using it any fashion. For example, if you are expecting numerical input, make sure that you only receive a number AND that it is within the expected range. If you are expecting a date or date-time make sure that it is in the proper format AND that it is a valid date. Do not pass anything received from a user directly to your database.

...and in addition to that GreenSQL doesn't prevent injections but at least its an IDS approach to getting malicious activity early warnings.

The "Bobby Tables problem," referred to (and originally inspired by) that comic strip, has another aspect, too: "don't give your web applications any more database privileges than they actually require to do a particular thing." If you are querying records, you shouldn't be using a database-handle that is connected using privileges that allow writing to anything ... nor read-access to anything that does not need to be queried at this time.

Basically, it comes down to being dis-trustful, and programming your applications to do the same thing.

Like others said here, use prepared statement. I've never heard of any security hole with prepared statements.