In what ways can PHP developers ensure they are following best practices and maintaining security in their code?

To ensure they are following best practices and maintaining security in their code, PHP developers should regularly update their PHP version, use parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection attacks, sanitize user input to prevent cross-site scripting attacks, and validate and sanitize data before processing it. 

// Example of using parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->execute();
```
```php
// Example of sanitizing user input to prevent cross-site scripting
$clean_input = htmlspecialchars($_POST['input']);
```
```php
// Example of validating and sanitizing data before processing it
if (filter_var($email, FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL)) {
    $clean_email = filter_var($email, FILTER_SANITIZE_EMAIL);
}

Keywords

SQL injection XSS attacks input validation password hashing secure coding practices

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