Tags: Criteria , Database , Hibernate , HQL , Interview , Prepared Statement , Security

SQL Injection
SQL injection may leads to unexpected transaction (i.e select, update, delete, etc...). We'll see the basic SQL injection examples and later on see how to prevent it using Prepared Statement, Hibernate Criteria and HQL.

Source code (SQLInjection.java)

import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

/**
 * Example of SQL injection.
 * @author javaQuery
 * @date 8th November, 2016
 * @Github: https://github.com/javaquery/Examples
 */
public class SQLInjection {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        /* You are getting parameter value from web page or other user input */
        String parameter = "12"; // normal condition
        new SQLInjection().getUser(parameter);

        /**
         * SQL injection using parameter value. 
         * - If user can change parameter in url, use some script, etc...
         */
        parameter = "12 or 1 = 1";
        new SQLInjection().getUser(parameter);
    }

    /**
     * Get user from database.
     * @param id
     * @return 
     */
    public List<Object> getUser(String id) {
        List<Object> result = new ArrayList<Object>();

        String sql = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = " + id + ";";
        System.out.println("SQL Query: " + sql);

        /* prepare connection and execute query */
        return result;
    }
}

Output
In following queries, 1st query is valid and return result as expected but when 2nd query is executed it'll select all users from database and that may leads to unexpected behavior of your system.

SQL Query: SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 12;
SQL Query: SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 12 or 1 = 1;

Other ways of SQL injection
Consider you are getting value of username and password from parameter into param_username and param_password.

String param_username = "\" or \"\"=\"";
String param_password = "\" or \"\"=\"";

//SQL Injection:
String sql = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = \"" + param_username + "\" AND password = \"" + param_password +"\"";
System.out.println(sql);
//OUTPUT: SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = "" or ""="" AND password = "" or ""=""

============================================
String param_userid = "123; DROP TABLE messages;";

//SQL Injection:
String sql = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = " + param_userid;
System.out.println(sql);
//OUTPUT: SELECT * FROM users WHERE id = 123; DROP TABLE messages;

---

First and foremost way: Handle Datatypes
For the sake of simplicity developers don't handle data types at coding. In above code I used String as input parameter in method getUser but should've use Integer/Long. If I used Integer or Long then I've to convert String => 12 or 1 = 1 to Integer/Long => Not Valid Number. It'll prevent SQL Injection.


Avoid SQL Injection using Prepared Statement

Source code (PreparedStatementExample.java)

import java.sql.Connection;
import java.sql.DriverManager;
import java.sql.PreparedStatement;
import java.sql.SQLException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

/**
 * Example of SQL injection.
 * @author javaQuery
 * @date 8th November, 2016
 * @Github: https://github.com/javaquery/Examples
 */
public class PreparedStatementExample {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new PreparedStatementExample().getUser("12");
    }
    
    /**
     * Get user from database.
     * @param id
     * @return 
     */
    public List<Object> getUser(String id) {
        List<Object> result = new ArrayList<Object>();

        String sql = "SELECT * FROM users where id = ?;";

        /* prepare connection and execute query */
        try {
            Connection connection = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/demo", "root", "root");
            PreparedStatement prepareStatement = connection.prepareStatement(sql);
            prepareStatement.setInt(1,Integer.parseInt(id)); // index of ? is '1', perform null/number check for 'id'
            //execute prepared statement
        } catch (SQLException ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        }
        
        return result;
    } 
}

Output
With PreparedStatement only following query can be generated.

SELECT * FROM users where id = 12;

prepareStatement.setInt: 12 or 1 = 1 is passed as value then Integer.parseInt will throw java.lang.NumberFormatException: For input string: "12 or 1=1".
prepareStatement.setString: What happen if String is used for Number data type in MySQL?


Avoid SQL Injection using Hibernate Criteria
Hibernate Criteria internally uses Prepared Statement to execute query.

Source code

String param_id = "12";

Criteria criteria = session.createCriteria(User.class);
/**
 * 'param_id' provided as String but 'id' declared as Integer/Long in User.java
 * So it'll throw exception(java.lang.String cannot be cast to java.lang.Integer) for invalid data type. (SQL injection handled)
 */
criteria.add(Restrictions.eq("id", param_id));
User user = criteria.uniqueResult();

==============================

// valid query
Integer param_id = 12;

Criteria criteria = session.createCriteria(User.class);
criteria.add(Restrictions.eq("id", param_id));
User user = criteria.uniqueResult();

Avoid SQL Injection using HQL
Its same as Hibernate Criteria.

Source code

String param_id = "12";

Query query = session.createQuery("FROM User WHERE id = :param_id");
/**
 * 'param_id' provided as String but 'id' declared as Integer/Long in User.java
 * So it'll throw exception(java.lang.String cannot be cast to java.lang.Integer) for invalid data type. (SQL injection handled)
 */
query.setParameter("param_id", param_id);
query.list();

==============================

// valid query
Integer param_id = 12;

Query query = session.createQuery("FROM User WHERE id = :param_id");
query.setParameter("param_id", param_id);
query.list();

Tags: Criteria , Database , Hibernate , HQL , Interview , Prepared Statement , Security