I'm not 100% positive, but I don't think strong_parameters would do anything to protect you here.
It would not have helped with this vulnerability, no. But it is a better way of handling filtering appropriate parameters.
Why is strong_parameters not the only way? Rails is pretty opinionated in many other respects...
It will be the default in rails 4... so soon : )
It was opinionated to use attr_accessible until a better approach came along. Beginning in 4.0 it will be opinionated to use strong_parameters, but they can't just take attr_accessible away because a lot of people are upgrading apps.
The downside of 'don't break APIs for minor version changes' means that you can't break APIs until the major version changes. ;)