What's the best method for sanitizing user inp

Question

Is there a catchall function somewhere that works well for sanitizing user input for SQL injection and XSS attacks, while still allowing certain types of html tags?

Answer 1

There is the filter extension (howto-link, manual), which works pretty well with all GPC variables. It's not a magic-do-it-all thing though, you will still have to use it.

Answer 2

It's a common misconception that user input can be filtered. PHP even has a (now deprecated) "feature", called magic-quotes, that builds on this idea. It's nonsense. Forget about filtering (Or cleaning, or whatever people call it).

What you should do, to avoid problems, is quite simple: whenever you embed a string within foreign code, you must escape it, according to the rules of that language. For example, if you embed a string in some SQL targeting MySql, you must escape the string with MySql's function for this purpose (mysqli_real_escape_string). (Or, in case of databases, using prepared statements are a better approach, when possible)

Another example is HTML: If you embed strings within HTML markup, you must escape it with htmlspecialchars. This means that every single echo or print statement should use htmlspecialchars.

A third example could be shell commands: If you are going to embed strings (Such as arguments) to external commands, and call them with exec, then you must use escapeshellcmd and escapeshellarg.

And so on and so forth ...

The only case where you need to actively filter data, is if you're accepting preformatted input. Eg. if you let your users post HTML markup, that you plan to display on the site. However, you should be wise to avoid this at all cost, since no matter how well you filter it, it will always be a potential security hole.

Answer 3

Never trust user data.

function clean_input($data) {
  $data = trim($data);
  $data = stripslashes($data);
  $data = htmlspecialchars($data);
  return $data;
}

The trim() function removes whitespace and other predefined characters from both sides of a string.

The stripslashes() function removes backslashes

The htmlspecialchars() function converts some predefined characters to HTML entities.

The predefined characters are:

& (ampersand) becomes &
" (double quote) becomes "
' (single quote) becomes '
< (less than) becomes &lt;
> (greater than) becomes &gt;

Answer 4

Do not try to prevent SQL injection by sanitizing input data.

Instead, do not allow data to be used in creating your SQL code. Use Prepared Statements (i.e. using parameters in a template query) that uses bound variables. It is the only way to be guaranteed against SQL injection.

Please see my website http://bobby-tables.com/ for more about preventing SQL injection.

Answer 5

PHP has the new nice filter_input functions now, that for instance liberate you from finding 'the ultimate e-mail regex' now that there is a built-in FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL type

My own filter class (uses javascript to highlight faulty fields) can be initiated by either an ajax request or normal form post. (see the example below)

/**
 *  Pork.FormValidator
 *  Validates arrays or properties by setting up simple arrays. 
 *  Note that some of the regexes are for dutch input!
 *  Example:
 * 
 *  $validations = array('name' => 'anything','email' => 'email','alias' => 'anything','pwd'=>'anything','gsm' => 'phone','birthdate' => 'date');
 *  $required = array('name', 'email', 'alias', 'pwd');
 *  $sanatize = array('alias');
 *
 *  $validator = new FormValidator($validations, $required, $sanatize);
 *                  
 *  if($validator->validate($_POST))
 *  {
 *      $_POST = $validator->sanatize($_POST);
 *      // now do your saving, $_POST has been sanatized.
 *      die($validator->getScript()."<script type='text/javascript'>alert('saved changes');</script>");
 *  }
 *  else
 *  {
 *      die($validator->getScript());
 *  }   
 *  
 * To validate just one element:
 * $validated = new FormValidator()->validate('blah@bla.', 'email');
 * 
 * To sanatize just one element:
 * $sanatized = new FormValidator()->sanatize('<b>blah</b>', 'string');
 * 
 * @package pork
 * @author SchizoDuckie
 * @copyright SchizoDuckie 2008
 * @version 1.0
 * @access public
 */
class FormValidator
{
    public static $regexes = Array(
            'date' => "^[0-9]{1,2}[-/][0-9]{1,2}[-/][0-9]{4}\$",
            'amount' => "^[-]?[0-9]+\$",
            'number' => "^[-]?[0-9,]+\$",
            'alfanum' => "^[0-9a-zA-Z ,.-_\\s\?\!]+\$",
            'not_empty' => "[a-z0-9A-Z]+",
            'words' => "^[A-Za-z]+[A-Za-z \\s]*\$",
            'phone' => "^[0-9]{10,11}\$",
            'zipcode' => "^[1-9][0-9]{3}[a-zA-Z]{2}\$",
            'plate' => "^([0-9a-zA-Z]{2}[-]){2}[0-9a-zA-Z]{2}\$",
            'price' => "^[0-9.,]*(([.,][-])|([.,][0-9]{2}))?\$",
            '2digitopt' => "^\d+(\,\d{2})?\$",
            '2digitforce' => "^\d+\,\d\d\$",
            'anything' => "^[\d\D]{1,}\$"
    );
    private $validations, $sanatations, $mandatories, $errors, $corrects, $fields;


    public function __construct($validations=array(), $mandatories = array(), $sanatations = array())
    {
        $this->validations = $validations;
        $this->sanatations = $sanatations;
        $this->mandatories = $mandatories;
        $this->errors = array();
        $this->corrects = array();
    }

    /**
     * Validates an array of items (if needed) and returns true or false
     *
     */
    public function validate($items)
    {
        $this->fields = $items;
        $havefailures = false;
        foreach($items as $key=>$val)
        {
            if((strlen($val) == 0 || array_search($key, $this->validations) === false) && array_search($key, $this->mandatories) === false) 
            {
                $this->corrects[] = $key;
                continue;
            }
            $result = self::validateItem($val, $this->validations[$key]);
            if($result === false) {
                $havefailures = true;
                $this->addError($key, $this->validations[$key]);
            }
            else
            {
                $this->corrects[] = $key;
            }
        }

        return(!$havefailures);
    }

    /**
     *
     *  Adds unvalidated class to thos elements that are not validated. Removes them from classes that are.
     */
    public function getScript() {
        if(!empty($this->errors))
        {
            $errors = array();
            foreach($this->errors as $key=>$val) { $errors[] = "'INPUT[name={$key}]'"; }

            $output = '$$('.implode(',', $errors).').addClass("unvalidated");'; 
            $output .= "new FormValidator().showMessage();";
        }
        if(!empty($this->corrects))
        {
            $corrects = array();
            foreach($this->corrects as $key) { $corrects[] = "'INPUT[name={$key}]'"; }
            $output .= '$$('.implode(',', $corrects).').removeClass("unvalidated");';   
        }
        $output = "<script type='text/javascript'>{$output} </script>";
        return($output);
    }


    /**
     *
     * Sanatizes an array of items according to the $this->sanatations
     * sanatations will be standard of type string, but can also be specified.
     * For ease of use, this syntax is accepted:
     * $sanatations = array('fieldname', 'otherfieldname'=>'float');
     */
    public function sanatize($items)
    {
        foreach($items as $key=>$val)
        {
            if(array_search($key, $this->sanatations) === false && !array_key_exists($key, $this->sanatations)) continue;
            $items[$key] = self::sanatizeItem($val, $this->validations[$key]);
        }
        return($items);
    }


    /**
     *
     * Adds an error to the errors array.
     */ 
    private function addError($field, $type='string')
    {
        $this->errors[$field] = $type;
    }

    /**
     *
     * Sanatize a single var according to $type.
     * Allows for static calling to allow simple sanatization
     */
    public static function sanatizeItem($var, $type)
    {
        $flags = NULL;
        switch($type)
        {
            case 'url':
                $filter = FILTER_SANITIZE_URL;
            break;
            case 'int':
                $filter = FILTER_SANITIZE_NUMBER_INT;
            break;
            case 'float':
                $filter = FILTER_SANITIZE_NUMBER_FLOAT;
                $flags = FILTER_FLAG_ALLOW_FRACTION | FILTER_FLAG_ALLOW_THOUSAND;
            break;
            case 'email':
                $var = substr($var, 0, 254);
                $filter = FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL;
            break;
            case 'string':
            default:
                $filter = FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING;
                $flags = FILTER_FLAG_NO_ENCODE_QUOTES;
            break;

        }
        $output = filter_var($var, $filter, $flags);        
        return($output);
    }

    /** 
     *
     * Validates a single var according to $type.
     * Allows for static calling to allow simple validation.
     *
     */
    public static function validateItem($var, $type)
    {
        if(array_key_exists($type, self::$regexes))
        {
            $returnval =  filter_var($var, FILTER_VALIDATE_REGEXP, array("options"=> array("regexp"=>'!'.self::$regexes[$type].'!i'))) !== false;
            return($returnval);
        }
        $filter = false;
        switch($type)
        {
            case 'email':
                $var = substr($var, 0, 254);
                $filter = FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL;    
            break;
            case 'int':
                $filter = FILTER_VALIDATE_INT;
            break;
            case 'boolean':
                $filter = FILTER_VALIDATE_BOOLEAN;
            break;
            case 'ip':
                $filter = FILTER_VALIDATE_IP;
            break;
            case 'url':
                $filter = FILTER_VALIDATE_URL;
            break;
        }
        return ($filter === false) ? false : filter_var($var, $filter) !== false ? true : false;
    }       



}

Of course, keep in mind that you need to do your sql query escaping too depending on what type of db your are using (mysql_real_escape_string() is useless for an sql server for instance). You probably want to handle this automatically at your appropriate application layer like an ORM. Also, as mentioned above: for outputting to html use the other php dedicated functions like htmlspecialchars ;)

For really allowing HTML input with like stripped classes and/or tags depend on one of the dedicated xss validation packages. DO NOT WRITE YOUR OWN REGEXES TO PARSE HTML!

Answer 6

One trick that can help in the specific circumstance where you have a page like /mypage?id=53 and you use the id in a WHERE clause is to ensure that id definitely is an integer, like so:

if (isset($_GET['id'])) {
  $id = $_GET['id'];
  settype($id, 'integer');
  $result = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM mytable WHERE id = '$id'");
  # now use the result
}

But of course that only cuts out one specific attack, so read all the other answers. (And yes I know that the code above isn't great, but it shows the specific defence.)