How can you ensure the security of your PHP application when interacting with a database?

To ensure the security of your PHP application when interacting with a database, you should use prepared statements with parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection attacks. This method helps to sanitize user input and ensures that malicious SQL queries cannot be executed.

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

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

// Bind the parameter values
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username, PDO::PARAM_STR);

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

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