Database query injection detection and prevention

A method for detecting injection attacks, the method comprising:

• receiving, via a computer network, a database statement containing a query term and having a syntactic pattern;
• determining whether parsing the received database statement cause a syntax error;
• and
• based at least on determining that parsing the received database statement does not cause a syntax error,
• determining whether the syntactic pattern of the received database statement matches any existing syntactic pattern associated with one or more previously received database statements;
• and
• based at least on determining that the syntactic pattern of the received database statement does not match any existing syntactic pattern,
• determining whether the received database statement matches an existing syntactic pattern when the query term is inserted into an injection point in the existing syntactic pattern;
• and
• in response to determining that the received database statement matches the existing syntactic pattern, indicating that the received database statement involves an injection attack.

A computing device interconnected with an application server via a computer network, the computing device comprising:

• a processor and a memory containing instructions executable by the processor to cause the processor to perform a process that includes:
• determining whether parsing a database statement cause a syntax error in a database;
• and
• based at least on determining that parsing the received database statement does not cause a syntax error,
• determining whether an identical syntactic pattern already exists, the identical syntactic pattern having identical number and sequence of database commands as that of the received database statement;
• and
• based at least on determining that an identical syntactic pattern already exists in the database, indicating that the received database statement does not involve an injection attack.