Are there potential security risks when outputting HTML tags directly using echo in PHP?

Outputting HTML tags directly using echo in PHP can pose security risks if the content being echoed is not properly sanitized. This can lead to cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks where malicious scripts are injected into the output. To mitigate this risk, it is recommended to use htmlspecialchars() function to escape special characters in the output.

<?php
// Example of outputting HTML tags safely using htmlspecialchars()
$htmlContent = "<h1>Welcome</h1>";
echo htmlspecialchars($htmlContent);
?>