What additional security measures can be implemented in PHP applications to protect against unauthorized access and data theft?

To protect against unauthorized access and data theft in PHP applications, additional security measures can be implemented such as using parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection attacks, validating and sanitizing user input to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks, implementing proper authentication and authorization mechanisms, and using HTTPS to encrypt data transmission. 

// Example of using parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username AND password = :password");
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->bindParam(':password', $password);
$stmt->execute();
```

```php
// Example of validating and sanitizing user input to prevent XSS attacks
$username = htmlspecialchars($_POST['username'], ENT_QUOTES);
$password = htmlspecialchars($_POST['password'], ENT_QUOTES);
```

```php
// Example of implementing authentication and authorization mechanisms
if($_SESSION['authenticated'] !== true){
    header('Location: login.php');
    exit();
}
```

```php
// Example of using HTTPS to encrypt data transmission
// Ensure that the server is configured to use HTTPS for secure communication

Keywords

authentication authorization encryption input validation secure sessions

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