A website that is run by one of my friends got hacked recently resulting in several unpleasant manipulations like redirecting visitors to another domain. My friend suspected that the hacker manipulated the MySQL database of the website but there was not an easy way to find out. The only way he could think of was to manually browse the settings to see if a table in the database contained values that did not look correct. A tedious process with a high probability to miss some of the changes.
A quick Google search revealed the software Mysql Structure Compare which could help in the process. The software basically allows a webmaster to compare two MySQL databases with each other.
This can be a very effective way of comparing snapshots of the same database, e.g. a current version and a backup. This is exactly what we did to check for changes between the hacked database and a database backup that was created the other day.
Mysql Structure Compare required two running databases that can either be hosted locally or remotely. The database name, user, password, host and port need to be specified in the application. The easiest way to setup the second database is to use a local AMP installation as the database host, this can be done with XAMPP or WAMPserver for instance.
It is also possible to run both databases locally. Mysql Structure Compare is a portable software program for the Windows and Linux operating system that can effectively compare two MySQL databases with each other.
The software is available at the developer’s website where it can be downloaded for all supported operating systems.
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