Security Question

[Renkia]

Hey guys!

Sorry i havnt been on i have had to pay the bill for the INTERNET.

Since there was no internet i had a spare of MTG (MagicTallGuy) Forum. And i was wondering how is this secure? It would help if some-one could explain How & Why it will secure your $_GET?

 

$_GET['reply'] = abs(@intval($_GET['reply']));

 

Regards,

Rasheed Saeed - Renkia

[a_bertrand]

...as been answered thousand times already...

Anyhow, this makes sure the value is a int and is positive. How this is secure? Well, it prevents SQL injections in case you use the parameter directly into a SQL query. Beside that nothing. For example, it will still allow people to access data they should not (for example, by reading a private message if this is used there, you could read a private message of somebody else, unless you check you really have access to that).

So this is a very first step.

Now, I honestly don't see the need to use abs as it will not hurt the DB to read negative ids. If there isn't, it will say so ;)

Then fails as well the intval which could be transformed into a +0

so you can easily write it like that (much shorter, and faster):

$_GET["reply"]+=0

 

If your PHP setup will warn in case the "reply" parameter is not set you could do so:

 

$_GET["reply"]=(isset($_GET["reply"])?$_GET["reply"]+0:0);

 

or if you want it over multiple lines:

if (isset($_GET["reply"]) $_GET["reply"]+=0;
else $_GET["reply"]=0;

[Renkia]

Cheers a_bertrand

Sorry for making you type it up, but i havnt seen this before. Plus it makes perfect sence? :P