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EC-Council

312-50V12 · Question #154

You're the security manager for a tech company that uses a database to store sensitive customer data. You have implemented countermeasures against SQL injection attacks. Recently, you noticed some sus

The correct answer is D. ' OR 'a'='a; DROP TABLE members; --: This payload combines the manipulation of the WHERE. The question asks to identify the SQL injection payload with the most significant impact among the choices. The correct answer involves a command that can delete database tables, leading to major data loss.

Submitted by rachelw· Mar 4, 2026Web Application Hacking

Question

You're the security manager for a tech company that uses a database to store sensitive customer data. You have implemented countermeasures against SQL injection attacks. Recently, you noticed some suspicious activities and suspect an attacker is using SQL injection techniques. The attacker is believed to use different forms of payloads in his SQL queries. In the case of a successful SQL injection attack, which of the following payloads would have the most significant impact?

Options

  • AUNION SELECT NULL, NULL, NULL -- : This payload manipulates the UNION SQL operator,
  • B' OR username LIKE '%': This payload uses the LIKE operator to search for a specific pattern in a
  • C' OR '1'='l: This payload manipulates the WHERE clause of an SQL statement, allowing the
  • D' OR 'a'='a; DROP TABLE members; --: This payload combines the manipulation of the WHERE

How the community answered

(25 responses)
  • A
    8% (2)
  • B
    4% (1)
  • C
    4% (1)
  • D
    84% (21)

Why each option

The question asks to identify the SQL injection payload with the most significant impact among the choices. The correct answer involves a command that can delete database tables, leading to major data loss.

AUNION SELECT NULL, NULL, NULL -- : This payload manipulates the UNION SQL operator,

This payload uses the `UNION SELECT` operator to combine results from multiple queries, primarily enabling information disclosure by retrieving data from other tables, which is less impactful than data destruction.

B' OR username LIKE '%': This payload uses the LIKE operator to search for a specific pattern in a

This payload uses the `LIKE` operator to create a broad search condition (`' OR username LIKE '%'`), typically used to bypass authentication by making the username check always true, granting unauthorized access but not causing data destruction.

C' OR '1'='l: This payload manipulates the WHERE clause of an SQL statement, allowing the

This payload creates an always-true condition (`' OR '1'='1`) within the `WHERE` clause, commonly used for authentication bypass to gain unauthorized access, but it does not inherently lead to data loss or schema changes.

D' OR 'a'='a; DROP TABLE members; --: This payload combines the manipulation of the WHERECorrect

This payload combines a true condition (' OR 'a'='a) often used for authentication bypass, with a semicolon-separated Data Definition Language (DDL) command (`DROP TABLE members;`). Executing a `DROP TABLE` command directly leads to the permanent deletion of an entire database table, resulting in significant data loss and potential service disruption, which represents the highest impact among the given options.

Concept tested: Identifying destructive SQL injection payloads and their impact

Source: https://owasp.org/www-community/attacks/SQL_Injection

Topics

#SQL Injection payloads#data destruction#database manipulation#impact assessment

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