How can PHP beginners avoid security vulnerabilities when handling passwords in their code?

To avoid security vulnerabilities when handling passwords in PHP code, beginners should never store passwords in plain text. Instead, passwords should be securely hashed using a strong hashing algorithm like bcrypt. Additionally, it is essential to use prepared statements to prevent SQL injection attacks when interacting with a database. 

// Hashing a password using bcrypt
$password = 'password123';
$hashed_password = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_BCRYPT);

// Verifying a password
$entered_password = 'password123';
if (password_verify($entered_password, $hashed_password)) {
    echo 'Password is correct';
} else {
    echo 'Password is incorrect';
}

Keywords

password hashing password salting SQL injection cross-site scripting secure coding practices

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