What are some common pitfalls to avoid when using PHP and MySQL for user management systems?

One common pitfall to avoid when using PHP and MySQL for user management systems is failing to properly sanitize user input, which can leave the system vulnerable to SQL injection attacks. To prevent this, always use prepared statements or parameterized queries to interact with the database.

// Example of using prepared statements to avoid SQL injection
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username");
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->execute();