Free CompTIA Security+ SY0-701 Practice Question

A SQL Injection attack takes advantage of a bug or vulnerability in an application that uses a database such as a web application or API. Structured Query Language (SQL) is the language used by applications internally to query a database for information. If the application takes input from end users it needs to ensure the given information is not SQL. If it fails to do so malicious actors can manipulate the application into sending unauthorized commands to the database.

For example if a web application has a search feature that allows searching by first and last names, SQL could be given instead of a real name and a poorly secured application would pass this SQL to the database directly - allowing malicious actors to query or delete data in the database directly!