Press "Enter" to skip to content

Column Lookups and Dynamic SQL

Rob Farley does a double-check:

I’ve written before about what I consider the golden rule with SQL Injection. And that is, to understand that DATA should not be executed like CODE. A parameter is fine – that’s not part of what gets executed – but you do not embed user-entered values into queries. You never create a WHERE clause like “WHERE t.col1 = 3”, if that value 3 is being passed in. Instead, you use “WHERE t.col1 = @param”. Because you can’t assume that “3” is safe to run.

But there are things in queries that can’t be parameterised. Table names, linked server names, column names, for example.

Read on to learn what Rob does in those cases.