How can SQL injection vulnerabilities be mitigated in PHP scripts, especially when dealing with user input in queries?

SQL injection vulnerabilities can be mitigated in PHP scripts by using prepared statements with parameterized queries instead of directly embedding user input into SQL queries. This approach helps prevent malicious SQL code from being injected into the query, as the input is treated as data rather than executable code.

// Establish a database connection
$pdo = new PDO("mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase", "username", "password");

// Prepare a SQL statement with a parameterized query
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username");

// Bind the user input to the parameter
$username = $_POST['username'];
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);

// Execute the prepared statement
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch the results
$results = $stmt->fetchAll(PDO::FETCH_ASSOC);