I wanted to know what the most common type of attack on a network. It turns out that one of the most agreed upon types of attacks in a SQL injection (SQLi). It mainly conforms to the idea that there is a php call to a SQL language based server. Since SQL is a query language, a query can be manipulated to control a database (or more). It can be done several ways. The page I read from based their example on a password manipulation where the user name and password query is appended with "OR 1=1". In the example given this creates a situation that makes the "WHERE" clause return the first username and password indexed. It went further to state that since administrator accounts are towards the top in terms indexing it is likely this account found will be that of an administrator. Thus, not only gaining control of the entire database, but even possibly the server itself. Once this is done it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to realize the server is completely compromized.

The article gave a few basic recommendations to secure a server and webpage. As with all things IT, training and awareness are paramount. One should always assume any user, including authorized users are attempting to be malicious. Filter using whitelists, not blacklists, as blacklists are more vulnerable because there is a set number of entities to a blacklists while there are only a few whitelists and thus blacklists all things not whitelisted. Of course they go on to advertise their product to help with combating SQLi instead of creating SQLi countermeasures from scratch. However, it can be done as many sites exist to aid in counter acting SQLi attempts