The key to becoming a competent white hat is knowing how the technology that you are trying to exploit actually works. SQL injection is one of the most common methods of attack used today and also one of the easiest to learn. What Is SQL Injection? SQL, which stands for structured query language, is a standard language used for retrieving and manipulating data in a relational database management system (RDBMS). Data is accessed through the use of queries, which allow information to be created, read, updated, and deleted (you will often see web applications referred to as CRUD apps for this reason). Databases can be used in a variety of situations, but one of the most common configurations is a database serving as the backend to a web application. When certain actions are performed, such as logging in or searching, queries are sent from the web app to the database i njection is allowed to occur when input fields are not properly sanitized or escaped. An attacker c...