How can one prevent the exposure of sensitive information, such as passwords, in error messages on a PHP website?

To prevent the exposure of sensitive information, such as passwords, in error messages on a PHP website, you can implement custom error handling to display generic error messages to users while logging detailed error information for developers. This way, users won't see sensitive information, but developers can still access the necessary details to troubleshoot issues. 

// Custom error handling function
function customErrorHandler($errno, $errstr, $errfile, $errline) {
    error_log("Error: $errstr in $errfile on line $errline");
    echo "An error occurred. Please try again later.";
}

// Set custom error handler
set_error_handler("customErrorHandler");

// Example usage
$password = "sensitive_password";
if (strlen($password) < 8) {
    trigger_error("Password must be at least 8 characters long", E_USER_ERROR);
}

Keywords

PHP error handling exception handling sensitive information security

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