How can I ensure that my PHP code is secure and not vulnerable to external attacks when passing parameters in the URL?

To ensure that your PHP code is secure and not vulnerable to external attacks when passing parameters in the URL, you should always sanitize and validate user input. This can be done by using functions like htmlspecialchars() to prevent XSS attacks and filter_input() to validate input against predefined filters. Additionally, you can use prepared statements when interacting with a database to prevent SQL injection attacks.

// Example of sanitizing and validating user input passed through the URL
$userId = filter_input(INPUT_GET, 'user_id', FILTER_VALIDATE_INT);

if ($userId === false) {
    // Handle invalid input
    die("Invalid user ID");
}

// Use $userId in your code securely