CODEWITHSUNDEEP
phpmysqlinsertsalt-cryptographysha256
user1710563
user1710563

Reputation: 387

SHA256 salt with PHP and MySQL - Insert error

I'm using the following code to salt and hash passwords in a MySQL database:

<?php
function make($string, $salt = '') {
    return hash('sha256', $string . $salt);
}
function salt($length) {
    return mcrypt_create_iv($length, MCRYPT_DEV_URANDOM);
}

$salt = salt(32);
$password = make('password', $salt);
?>

However when I attempt to insert the generated salt into the database, there are some cases where this error occurs:

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'ÜöOòƒ·¡]ŽÖ', 1)' at line 1

I assume that is because of unrecognized characters being generated. What would be a solution for this?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 638

Answers (1)

Marc B
Marc B

Reputation: 360702

You're inserting raw binary garbage. That will naturally (and semi-randomly) contain SQL metachatacters, like a '. This means your query is vulnerable to sql injection attacks.

You don't show any of your actual PHP code, but you should either be using a prepared statement, or doing manual escaping, e.g.

$stmt = mysqli_prepare($conn, "INSERT .... (password_hash) VALUES (?)");
$stmt->execute(array($raw_hash));

or

$quoted = mysql_real_escape_string($raw_hash);
$sql = "INSERT ... (password_hash) VALUES ('$quoted')";

Alternatively, you could encode that hash string, e.g. use base64, so that the encoded hash becomes a relatively harmless string. But even then you should be using proper query construction techniques.

Upvotes: 3

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