What are common pitfalls when creating login forms with PHP?

One common pitfall when creating login forms with PHP is not properly sanitizing user input, leaving the application vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. To solve this issue, always use prepared statements when interacting with the database to prevent SQL injection.

// Example of using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection

// Assuming $username and $password are user inputs
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = ? AND password = ?');
$stmt->execute([$username, $password]);

// Check if the user exists
if ($stmt->rowCount() > 0) {
    // User authenticated, proceed with login
} else {
    // Invalid credentials
}