How to Fix SQL Injection on Your Website: A Guide for Business Owners

How to fix SQL injection on your website: a guide for business owners

If a security scan or a security professional has told you that your website has a SQL injection vulnerability, this guide explains what that means, how serious it is, and exactly what you need to do — without requiring any technical knowledge.

What you have been told and what it actually means

SQL injection means that an attacker can send specially crafted input through your website — through a search box, a contact form, a login page, or a URL — that tricks your website's database into responding in ways it should not.

In the worst case, this means an attacker can extract every record in your database — every customer name, email address, password, order, and any other information your site stores.

How serious is this?

Critical. SQL injection vulnerabilities should be treated as your highest priority security fix. If your site has this vulnerability right now, it is possible that it has already been exploited without your knowledge.

What to do right now

Contact your developer immediately and tell them specifically: "Our website has been found to have a SQL injection vulnerability. We need this fixed as a priority. Can you implement parameterised queries or prepared statements across all database interactions, starting with any forms or URL parameters that accept user input?"

What your developer needs to do

The fix for SQL injection is called parameterised queries or prepared statements. Instead of building database queries by combining your code with user input, parameterised queries keep them separate. The database knows that the user's input is data, not a command.

This is a code change. Every place in your website's code that builds a database query using input from users needs to be updated. Depending on the size and age of your site, this could take a few hours or several days.

How to prevent it in future

Regular security testing catches new issues before they can be exploited. Yrzo AI runs 44 automated security checks including SQL injection testing across all forms and URL parameters on your live site, delivering a report in under 20 minutes. Starting at £399 per scan.