LDAP Injection

👉 Overview

👀 What ?

LDAP Injection is a type of cyber-attack that exploits vulnerabilities in the implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) in web applications. This attack manipulates the application to execute arbitrary commands inside the LDAP statement.

🧐 Why ?

LDAP Injection is significant because it can potentially lead to unauthorized data access, data corruption, or even denial of service. It is a serious security risk because it can allow an attacker to query, modify, or even delete data stored in an LDAP directory. This is particularly concerning when the directory contains sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and other critical data.

⛏️ How ?

To take advantage of LDAP Injection, an attacker inserts (or 'injects') an LDAP query (or part of it) into a query that is being built by the web application. If the application does not properly sanitize the input, the injected query will be executed. To counter this, applications should always validate and sanitize their inputs. Parameterized queries or prepared statements should be used to prevent injection, and access controls should be in place to limit what each user can do.

⏳ When ?

LDAP Injection has been a known attack vector since the early 2000s, around the same time that SQL Injection attacks started to become prevalent. Despite the increased awareness and protective measures, such attacks are still common today due to inadequate input validation and sanitization.

⚙️ Technical Explanations

At a technical level, an LDAP Injection attack involves the manipulation of LDAP queries. LDAP is a protocol for accessing and maintaining directory services over a network. It is often used for user authentication and authorization. In an LDAP Injection attack, the attacker manipulates the query by injecting malicious LDAP statements. If the input is not properly sanitized, the application may interpret the attacker's input as a legitimate part of the query. This can result in unauthorized access to data, data corruption, or even denial of service.