On Oct 31, 2016, at 5:06 AM, Brian Wolff
<bawolff(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On Sun, Oct 30, 2016 at 7:37 PM, Tom Bishop, Wenlin Institute
<tangmu(a)wenlin.com> wrote:
The following code and comment appears in
includes/db/Database.php:
protected function prepare( $sql, $func = 'DatabaseBase::prepare' ) {
/* MySQL doesn't support prepared statements (yet), so just
* pack up the query for reference. We'll manually replace
* the bits later.
*/
return array( 'query' => $sql, 'func' => $func );
}
However, the MySQL 5.7 documentation indicates that prepared statements are supported:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/sql-syntax-prepared-statements.html
Is the comment in Database.php outdated, and if so, could MediaWiki be made more secure
against SQL injection by supporting prepared statements with recent versions of MySQL? Or
does the support already exist, in spite of the comment?
Best wishes,
Tom
A large part of Database.php was written back in the MySQL 3 era,
which predates many of MySQL's more modern features.
The client-side implementation of PREPARE was added back in Oct 18,
2004 (
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Special:Code/MediaWiki/5962 ).
Since then, its never really been used, nor has that code really been
touched. Most of our code uses the array based Database::select()
wrapper, which has mostly proven effective against sql injections.
(There have been instances of SQL injection in MW in the past,
although its not very common relative to other types of security
vulnerabilities like XSS).
Whether or not we should use prepared queries in MW in general, I
don't know. Personally I like our current mechanisms and think they
are just fine, but perhaps I just like what I'm used to. In any case,
if we were to change to using prepared statements as our current best
practice, it would require a either a discussion on wikitech-l or a
MediaWiki RFC.
Thank you very much for that information!
My impression so far with Database::select() is that it's hard to understand exactly
what goes where, when converting an ordinary SQL query to a set of select() arguments.
It's encouraging, though, to know that you've found it to work fine. I'll keep
working on it. This page --
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Database_access
-- includes a dead link to --
https://doc.wikimedia.org/mediawiki-core/master/php/classDatabaseBase.html
Any idea where it should link to?
This comment in the talk page is a little scary: "If you feed an array to select,
it's safe. If you construct a string, even a string to be passed to ::select, then
it's up to you to take care of safety." Based on that, and on the
"mostly" in your "has mostly proven effective", it still seems like
prepared statements would be more secure.
Here's a recent article that strongly recommends prepared statements as more secure
than input verification:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/10/how-security-flaws-wo…
It says, "Prepared statements are a robust and virtually universal solution to the
problem of SQL injection. Every API worth using supports them, and yet SQL injection flaws
remain in abundance."
Best wishes,
Tom
Wenlin Institute, Inc. SPC (a Social Purpose Corporation)
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