What are some potential pitfalls when handling data securely in PHP, as discussed in the forum thread?

Potential pitfalls when handling data securely in PHP include not sanitizing user input, not using prepared statements for database queries, and not properly encrypting sensitive data. To solve these issues, always sanitize user input to prevent SQL injection attacks, use prepared statements to prevent SQL injection and improve performance, and encrypt sensitive data to protect it from unauthorized access. Example PHP code snippet for sanitizing user input: 

$user_input = $_POST['input'];
$sanitized_input = filter_var($user_input, FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
```

Example PHP code snippet for using prepared statements for database queries:

```php
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username");
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->execute();
```

Example PHP code snippet for encrypting sensitive data:

```php
$plaintext = "Sensitive data";
$encryption_key = "secret_key";
$encrypted_data = openssl_encrypt($plaintext, 'aes-256-cbc', $encryption_key, 0, 'secret_iv');

Keywords

SQL injection cross-site scripting password hashing encryption input validation

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