What are some key security considerations when developing PHP applications?

Issue: SQL injection attacks are a common security vulnerability in PHP applications. To prevent these attacks, developers should always use prepared statements with parameterized queries when interacting with a database.

// Using prepared statements to prevent SQL injection

// Establish database connection
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase', 'username', 'password');

// Prepare the SQL statement
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');

// Bind parameters
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $_POST['username']);

// Execute the query
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch results
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();