Cisco Certified Support Technician (CCST) NetworkingSecurity FundamentalsHard
A cybersecurity team is investigating a potential data breach where an attacker gained unauthorized access to sensitive customer records. The team discovers that the attacker exploited a vulnerability in the web application's input validation, allowing them to execute malicious commands on the database server. Which type of attack was most likely used?
- ADistributed Denial of Service (DDoS)
- BSQL Injection
- CPhishing
- DCross-Site Scripting (XSS)
Show answer & explanationAnswer & explanation
Correct answer: B. SQL Injection
The scenario describes an attacker exploiting 'input validation' vulnerability to 'execute malicious commands on the database server' to access 'sensitive customer records'. This is a classic description of an SQL injection attack, where malicious SQL code is inserted into input fields to manipulate database queries.
Why the other options are wrong
- A. DDoS attacks aim to overwhelm a service, not to exploit application vulnerabilities for data access.
- C. Phishing is a social engineering attack to trick users into revealing information, not an application-level exploit against a database.
- D. XSS attacks inject malicious scripts into web pages viewed by other users, typically affecting client-side browsers, not directly executing commands on the database server.
SQL Injection
A web security vulnerability that allows an attacker to interfere with the queries that an application makes to its database. It allows an attacker to view, modify, or delete data, or even execute administrative operations on the database server.
- Exploits improper input validation
- Targets database-driven web applications
- Allows execution of arbitrary SQL commands
- Can lead to data breach or system compromise
Memory trick: Web 'W'eaknesses: SQL, XSS, CSRF.