How can PHP developers effectively manage and respond to security vulnerabilities on a forum board?

To effectively manage and respond to security vulnerabilities on a forum board, PHP developers should regularly update their PHP version, forum software, and any plugins or extensions used. They should also implement security measures such as input validation, output encoding, and proper user authentication to prevent common vulnerabilities like SQL injection, cross-site scripting, and session hijacking.

// Example of input validation to prevent SQL injection
$username = mysqli_real_escape_string($connection, $_POST['username']);
$password = password_hash($_POST['password'], PASSWORD_DEFAULT);
$query = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE username='$username' AND password='$password'";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);