LDAP Injection

LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) Injection is a critical web application security vulnerability that falls within the Payload Execution phase, specifically under the Injection Exploitations technique. This attack vector occurs when an application fails to properly sanitize user inputs before incorporating them into LDAP statements, allowing attackers to manipulate the structure of LDAP queries. By injecting malicious LDAP commands, attackers can bypass authentication controls, elevate privileges, extract sensitive directory information, modify directory entries, or even execute commands on the underlying system. LDAP Injection is particularly dangerous in enterprise environments where directory services manage authentication, authorization, and resource access controls. Successful exploitation can lead to unauthorized access to organizational data, lateral movement throughout the network, and potential compromise of the entire directory infrastructure. Unlike SQL Injection, LDAP Injection exploits the hierarchical nature of directory services and often leverages special characters like parentheses, asterisks, and logical operators to alter query execution flow.