How can the use of external fonts in PHP Captcha generation impact the overall performance and security of the system?

Using external fonts in PHP Captcha generation can impact performance by increasing the time it takes to load and render the Captcha image. Additionally, using external fonts can introduce security risks if the font files are not properly validated and sanitized, potentially allowing for malicious code execution. To mitigate these risks, it is recommended to use built-in or system fonts for generating Captchas instead of external fonts. This can help improve performance and reduce the likelihood of security vulnerabilities.

// Example of generating a Captcha using a built-in font
$font = 'arial.ttf'; // Using a built-in font
$text = 'Captcha Text';
$image = imagecreate(200, 50);
$background = imagecolorallocate($image, 255, 255, 255);
$textColor = imagecolorallocate($image, 0, 0, 0);
imagettftext($image, 20, 0, 10, 30, $textColor, $font, $text);
header('Content-type: image/png');
imagepng($image);
imagedestroy($image);