WordPress SQL Injection: Complete Protection Guide to Fix & Prevent

For interacting with databases developers use SQL (Structured Query Language). This is how they manage data and display content & information to readers. Although, when hackers use the same useful language to corrupt the database by malicious statements or code, it is known as SQLi or SQL injection. In the case of WordPress, it is called WordPress SQL Injection. 

Well, whether you are just searching for the information or facing the command attack for your WordPress website, this blog provides solutions for both. 

Let’s start with understanding SQL injection a little more with how it takes place. 

How does WP SQL injection take place? 

Discovered in 1998 by Jeff Forristal, the command attacks take place in a web application to get access to sensitive data. From poor coding standards to WP installations, the attack often takes place with the help of logins/ sign up forms, carts, feedback forms, contact forms, etc.

However, to understand the web app attacks process you have to dive into its types based on the process and intentions of attack. 
 
Types of SQL injections-

SQLi can be divided into 3 parts based on the intention of injection. Here they are:

1.) In-band SQL injection- The most common & simple type of SQL attack, it takes place intending to grab data; it is called In-band SQL injection. The easy-to-exploit attack occurs when hackers use the same communication channel to launch the attack and gather the results. 

 The attack was divided into two types, known as:

• Error-based SQL attack 
• Union-based attack 

2.) Blind SQL injection- The second type of SQL attack takes a long time to exploit your site and is a dangerous type of injection attack. In this web app attack, the hacker sends various queries to the database to check the response. The attackers could not see the results and that’s the reason it is called blind SQL injection.  

It also divided the web app attack into two types, known as: 

• Time-based attack 
• boolean attack 

3.) Out-of-band SQL injection- The Third type of SQL attack is the most uncommon one. The attack occurs because of the enabled database features, as because of the changed server features, the attacker cannot perform it on the same channel. 
  
Thus, after understanding the SQL injection, its vulnerabilities and types of attack, now let’s move towards the most crucial part of this WP security issue. Yes, we are talking about the preventions and fixes. 

How to prevent WP websites from SQL injection?

In this section of the blog, we will dive into the various techniques of protection you can use for protecting your website. To secure your WP website, here are the points you should focus on:

• Update the core, plugins and themes of your website. 
• Update PHP and MySQL
• Limited access to SQL users of sensitive directories 
• Avoid connecting root user to MySQL database
• Use the server and block the SQL keywords 
• Keep backup

Also, know 15 effective ways to secure your WP website. 

Apart from these precautions, you should also take care of the following fixes. 

1.) Use well-prepared statements- You can also use well-prepared statements to prevent attacks, as this statement is a template of SQL query. You can understand it simply as by this process the query and the data are sent separately, as attacks take place by mixing data and codes. 

2.) Escape user input- The best way to protect your site against this malicious attack is to escape special characters from the user input. 

Process- 

• Escape a string before building a query in PHP. You can use mysql_escape_string() function
• Escape string in MySQL. For this, you can use mysqli_real_escape_string()    

Note: it displays the output as HTML, also converts the string as it should not interface with HTML markup. You can convert special characters into PHP by using htmlspecialchars().

3.) Database cleanup- To improve data quality, productivity and security database cleanup is crucial. Follow the following steps and clean up your database:

• Command show table and examine the table SQLmap.
• If the SQL map is present, delete it using Drop table SQLmap 
• For surety, look out for new users if they are using the same code. 
• Command drop user and delete the malicious user.
• Change password

4.) Update core- Just like good routines, regularly updating your website’s core makes your website less in danger. Regular updates cut the site vulnerabilities and keep alerting users of any security issue. 
   
5.) Use firewall- To detect and block malicious activity, you can use several Top WP firewall plugins to secure your website from SQLI attacks, including Sucuri and CloudProxy. 

Don’t be Sorry but Safe!

Although WP SQL Injection is one of the common command attacks, it can turn into a significant loss because of some critical data loss or traffic switch. We hope this article helped you in both a knowledgeable or guided way.

However, if you have any queries related to SQL or WP security, you can contact us for more.