Cybersecurity Simulation: SQL Injection Incident
A critical alert has been flagged by your organization's Web Application Firewall (WAF) and SIEM system, indicating suspicious activity originating from external IP addresses targeting a public-facing web server. Preliminary analysis strongly suggests an ongoing SQL injection attempt. Your immediate task as a cybersecurity analyst is to investigate, assess the impact, and propose remediation strategies.
Part 1: Log Analysis and Vulnerability Identification
You are provided with sanitized web server log snippets and a segment of the application's backend code.
Log Snippet 1 (Apache Access Log):
10.0.0.5 - - [18/Apr/2024:10:30:15 +0000] "GET /api/products?product_id=1%20UNION%20SELECT%20NULL,database(),user(),NULL--%20 HTTP/1.1" 200 1567 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/123.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
Log Snippet 2 (Apache Access Log):
10.0.0.6 - - [18/Apr/2024:10:31:02 +0000] "GET /login?username=admin%27%20AND%20(SELECT%20SLEEP(5))--%20&password=password123 HTTP/1.1" 302 - "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/123.0.0.0 Safari/537.36"
Vulnerable PHP Code Snippet (process_product_request.php):
11: <?php 22: include 'db_connect.php'; 33: $product_id_input = $_GET['product_id']; 44: $sql = "SELECT product_name, price FROM products WHERE product_id = '$product_id_input';"; 55: $result = mysqli_query($conn, $sql); 66: 77: if ($result) { 88: $row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result); 99: if ($row) { 1010: echo "Product: " . $row['product_name'] . ", Price: " . $row['price']; 1111: } else { 1212: echo "Product not found."; 1313: } 1414: } else { 1515: echo "Error: " . mysqli_error($conn); 1616: } 1717: mysqli_close($conn); 1818: ?>
Analyze the provided log snippets and identify the specific type of SQL injection payload(s) present in each. Explain the immediate goal of the attacker based on the observed payloads.
Examine the provided PHP code snippet for process_product_request.php. Identify the exact line number(s) or section(s) that are vulnerable to SQL injection. Explain why this specific part of the code is vulnerable.
Based on the evidence from both the log snippets and the vulnerable code, what specific information or action is the attacker most likely trying to achieve through these SQL injection attempts?
Given the identified SQL injection vulnerability and the nature of the observed attacks, assess the potential types of data that could be exfiltrated by a successful exploitation. Be specific about the categories of information.
Explain the potential impact of a successful SQL injection attack on the Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability (CIA triad) of the affected system and data. Provide specific examples for each aspect.
Outline the immediate steps an analyst should take to contain this SQL injection attack and prevent further data exfiltration or system compromise.
Propose detailed long-term patching and remediation strategies for the identified SQL injection vulnerability. Include specific code-level changes (e.g., using prepared statements/parameterized queries) and other architectural or procedural improvements.
Suggest how to monitor for similar SQL injection attacks in the future, encompassing various layers of defense (e.g., WAF, SIEM, application logging, database monitoring).
Describe the essential post-incident activities that should be performed after an SQL injection attack has been successfully contained and remediated, assuming a data breach may have occurred.