What are common pitfalls to avoid when implementing login sessions in PHP for user tracking?

One common pitfall to avoid when implementing login sessions in PHP is not properly validating and sanitizing user input. This can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks. To mitigate this risk, always use prepared statements and input validation functions when interacting with user data. 

// Example of using prepared statements to validate and sanitize user input
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username AND password = :password');
$stmt->execute([
    'username' => filter_var($_POST['username'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING),
    'password' => password_hash($_POST['password'], PASSWORD_DEFAULT)
]);
$user = $stmt->fetch();

Keywords

session_start session hijacking secure cookie password hashing CSRF protection

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