On Apr 21, 2008, at 8:03 AM, Jason Pruim wrote:
Hi Everyone,
Last week you all helped me with the code to pull the database field
names directly from the database rather then being hardcoded by me.
Now I got to thinking, that I have exposed my database layout to
anyone who can log in and see it. Is that a security issue? I've
heard that if an attacker has the field names of a database, it
makes it easier for them to try and inject code into it. All my
queries to the database are done through prepared statements, and
mysqli_real_escape_string. So I've taken care of at least part of it.
I'm thinking that sense you have to log into the website to see the
field names, it's okay as long as I trust and monitor my users. But
I thought I would pose the question to people who are ALOT more
knowledgeable then me :)
Any comments are welcome, if you want to see source let me know and
I can shoot you an e-mail off list (Don't really want to expose my
code to all the archives just yet :))
As long as you're taking the necessary measures to ensure that your
database is not breakable/hackable, then us knowing your schema
shouldn't be an issue. I'd bet that one could guess part (or all?) of
many people's database schemas b/c they're so generic - and it doesn't
really matter to obfuscate them. I don't think it's as important to
create obscure database schemas as it is protect how you interact with
it.
However, just make sure of the following, and you should be good:
• Use mysql?_real_escape_string as you mentioned
• Use `backticks` around ALL your table and field names:
<?php
$user_id = mysql_real_escape_string ($_GET['user_id']);
$sql = "SELECT `first_name`, `last_name` FROM `user` WHERE (`user_id`
= '$user_id')";
?>
With those simple precautions, you should be well-protected.
HTH,
~Philip
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