Applications

Injection Attacks

Untrusted input executed as code or commands — still exploitable 25 years on.

What it is

SQL injection, command injection, LDAP injection, and NoSQL injection remain exploitable in production applications despite being well-documented since the late 1990s. Server-side template injection (SSTI) and XML injection are increasingly targeted in modern stacks. The root cause is user-controlled input being interpreted as code or structure, rather than data.

Attack techniques

  • SQL Injection (T1190)
  • Command Injection (T1059)
  • Server-Side Template Injection (SSTI)
  • NoSQL Injection
  • LDAP Injection
  • XML/XPath Injection

Business impact

SQL injection gives direct database access — reading, modifying, or deleting data. Command injection gives OS-level code execution on the server. Both are consistently rated critical severity.