What is a table prefix?

Question

What is a table prefix, and what are their advantages and disadvantages? This is in relation to MySQL.

Answer 1

In a small amount of cases, such as those where malware scripts have been created to target specific types of sites such as WordPress etc., changing the table prefixes has been useful as an extra security measure.

For example, adding table prefixes obscures common table names making it harder for hackers to access data in your database through SQL injection or other security holes because they will first need to discover what your table names are.

Be sure, however, to look at table prefixes as only a very minor layer of security. It should NOT be your main security method. You should still be taking other more important security measures to prevent SQL injection and other similar threats. For example, depending on how your code is set up it may still be possible for a hacker to run a "show tables" command through SQL injection to get the names of your database tables.