Are there any best practices or common pitfalls to be aware of when working with session variables in PHP?

When working with session variables in PHP, it is important to properly secure and validate the data stored in the session to prevent security vulnerabilities such as session hijacking or injection attacks. One common pitfall is not properly sanitizing user input before storing it in the session, which can lead to potential security risks.

// To prevent security vulnerabilities, always sanitize and validate user input before storing it in session variables
// Example of sanitizing user input before storing it in a session variable
$_SESSION['username'] = filter_var($_POST['username'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);