How can PHP developers address security vulnerabilities like SQL injection when updating their scripts to be compatible with newer PHP versions?

To address security vulnerabilities like SQL injection when updating PHP scripts to be compatible with newer versions, developers should use parameterized queries or prepared statements instead of concatenating user input directly into SQL queries. This helps prevent malicious SQL injection attacks by separating the SQL query logic from the user input data.

// Example of using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');
$stmt->execute(['username' => $username]);
$user = $stmt->fetch();