How can PHP be utilized to prevent common email security vulnerabilities, such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting?

To prevent common email security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting, it is essential to sanitize user input and use prepared statements when interacting with a database. Additionally, escaping output when displaying user-generated content can help prevent cross-site scripting attacks.

// Sanitize user input to prevent SQL injection
$email = mysqli_real_escape_string($conn, $_POST['email']);

// Use prepared statements to interact with the database
$stmt = $conn->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = ?");
$stmt->bind_param("s", $email);
$stmt->execute();
$result = $stmt->get_result();

// Escape output to prevent cross-site scripting
echo htmlspecialchars($user_email);