What is the SQL Server method of safe-quoting identifiers for dynamic sql generation.
- MySQL has
quote_identifier
- PostgreSQL has
quote_ident
How do I ensure given a dynamically generated column name for a dynamically generated statement that the column itself isn't a SQL-injection attack.
Let's say I have a SQL Statement,
SELECT [$col] FROM table;
which is essentially the same as
'SELECT [' + $col + '] FROM table;'
What stops an injection attack where
$col = "name] FROM sys.objects; \r\n DROP TABLE my.accounts; \r\n\ --";
Resulting in
SELECT [name] FROM sys.objects;
DROP TABLE my.accounts;
-- ] FROM table;
Best Answer
The function that you're looking for is
QUOTENAME
!Through the practical use of square bracket technology, you can safely encapsulate strings to aid in the prevention of hot SQL injection attacks.
Note that just sticking square brackets around something does not safely quote it out, though you can avoid your code erroring with invalid characters in object names.
Good code
Bad code
To give a specific example...
The following works fine for the initial input
But with malicious input it is vulnerable to SQL injection
Using
QUOTENAME
correctly escapes the embedded]
and prevents the attempted SQL injection from happening.