Are there any security measures that should be implemented when handling form data in PHP?

When handling form data in PHP, it is important to implement security measures to prevent attacks such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting (XSS). One way to enhance security is by using prepared statements and parameterized queries when interacting with a database to prevent SQL injection attacks. Additionally, you should sanitize and validate user input to prevent XSS attacks by removing or escaping potentially harmful characters. 

// Example of using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username AND password = :password");
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->bindParam(':password', $password);
$stmt->execute();

// Example of sanitizing and validating user input to prevent XSS
$username = htmlspecialchars($_POST['username']);
$email = filter_var($_POST['email'], FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL);

Keywords

SQL injection cross-site scripting input validation prepared statements data sanitization

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