What are some best practices for securely handling passwords in PHP scripts?

Storing passwords securely in PHP scripts is crucial to prevent unauthorized access to sensitive information. One best practice is to hash passwords using a strong hashing algorithm like bcrypt before storing them in a database. Additionally, it's important to never store passwords in plain text or use outdated hashing methods like MD5 or SHA1.

// Hashing a password using bcrypt
$password = "secret_password";
$hashed_password = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_BCRYPT);

// Verifying a password
$entered_password = "secret_password";
if (password_verify($entered_password, $hashed_password)) {
    echo "Password is correct!";
} else {
    echo "Password is incorrect!";
}