Do PDO prepared statements fully protect against SQL injection attacks?

Data and Databases
1

I have a piece of code that looks like this:

$connection = new PDO(‘placeholder’);


$statement = $connection->prepare(‘SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :user’);

$statement->execute(array(‘:user’ => $_GET[‘user’]));
According to the PDO documentation:

The driver manages the quoting of parameters in prepared statements.

Is this all that needs to be done to effectively prevent SQL injections? Is it really that straightforward?
Assume MySQL is in use for this discussion. My primary focus is the efficacy of prepared statements for SQL injection prevention, without considering XSS or other security issues.

2

Have you ever considered using ORM frameworks that also come with SQL injection prevention features alongside prepared statemnts? I’m curious if there are scenarios where code mistakenly bypasses these protections. Also, do you think there’s any impact on performance when relying heavily on prepared statements for large databases? :thinking:

3

Prepared statements in PDO do indeed offer a robust defense against SQL injection by ensuring that the input is treated as data rather than executable code. This means that any SQL commands inserted into the input by an attacker are not executed, but are instead treated as strings. However, it’s important to note that while prepared statements protect against SQL injection, they don’t address other potential vulnerabilities such as overexposing data by not employing additional security measures like limiting returned results or using appropriate permissions. Thus, while using prepared statements is a crucial step toward security, comprehensive security practices should still be observed.

4

prepared statements really do a good job at securing ur sql from injection. but always good to sanitize user input too just in case. pdos not foolproof against all types of attacks, there’s more to db security than that. dont overly depend on them for every security aspect. :star2: