Lateral SQL Injection in Oracle Database

Overview
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In order to get the system date in Oracle, you able to query for sysdate field in table dual.
SQL> select sysdate from dual;
SYSDATE
————–
15-SEP-11

SYSDATE format is set in: nls_date_format.

Following the publication: Lateral SQL Injection: A New Class of Vulnerability in Oracle, (http://www.databasesecurity.com/dbsec/lateral-sql-injection.pdf) published by David Litchfield, FEB/2008.

This post provides an overview and a demonstration on how this issue is still easily exploitable in Oracle Database.

Vulnerability
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Nls_date_format allows input of any string without filtering.
Example:  alter session set nls_date_format = ‘”the time is:”… hh24:mi’

After running that command, the SYSDATE will …

Time-Based Blind SQL Injection

 
Overview
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Blind SQL Injection is an attack which the attacker gets an indication for the query execution success. The attacker doesn’t get the query results.
Most of the time, the indication bases on server errors or customized application errors.

Time-Based Blind SQL Injection
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Sometimes the attacker might not be able to identify the query execution success, because the server/application doesn’t show any error.
One of the techniques to get an indication for the query execution success called Time-Based Blind SQL Injection.
With this technique, the attacker executes functions that take some time to finish (for example: Benchmark, Delay, etc.). By measuring the time took the application to response, the attacker might be able to identify if the query executed successfully or the query execution failed. …