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## From SQL Injection to Shell

This exercise demonstrates how to leverage a SQL injection to gain access to the admin console, and from there, how to execute commands on the underlying system.

- Free

- Medium

- < 1 Hr.

- White Badge

- Course

## Introduction

This course details the exploitation of a **SQL injection** in a **PHP** based website and how an attacker can use it to gain access to the administration pages. Then, using this access, the attacker will be able to gain code execution on the server.

The attack is divided into 3 steps:

- **Fingerprinting:** to gather information on the web application and technologies in use.

- **Detection and exploitation of a SQL injection:** in this part, you will learn how SQL injections work and how to exploit them in order to retrieve information.

- **Accessing the administration pages and gaining code execution:** the last step in which you will access the underlying system and run commands.

Fingerprinting can be done using multiple tools. First by just using a browser, it's possible to detect that the application is written in PHP. A lot of information can be retrieved by connecting to the web application using `netcat` or `telnet`. Using an application such as **Burp Suite** as a proxy makes it easy to retrieve the same information.

The tool **wfuzz** can be used to brute force directories and pages on the web server. `wfuzz` can also be used to detect PHP files on the server.

In order to understand, detect and exploit SQL injections, you need to understand the Structured Query Language (SQL). SQL allows a developer to perform requests such as retrieving information using the `SELECT` statement, updating information using the `UPDATE` statement, adding new information using the `INSERT` statement, and deleting information using the `DELETE` statement.

The provided source lists **Sign in** and **Create Account**. It does not specify hardware requirements in the supplied material.