Are there any best practices for securely storing user passwords in PHP applications?

One best practice for securely storing user passwords in PHP applications is to use a strong hashing algorithm like bcrypt to hash the passwords before storing them in the database. This helps protect the passwords in case of a data breach. Additionally, it's important to always use prepared statements when interacting with the database to prevent SQL injection attacks.

// Hashing the password using bcrypt
$password = 'user_password';
$hashed_password = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_BCRYPT);

// Storing the hashed password in the database
// $hashed_password should be stored in the users table