What are the best practices for handling user authentication and data storage in PHP applications?

One of the best practices for handling user authentication in PHP applications is to use secure hashing algorithms like bcrypt to store passwords. Additionally, it is important to sanitize user input to prevent SQL injection attacks. When storing user data, it is recommended to use prepared statements to prevent SQL injection and to validate input to ensure data integrity. 

// Example of using bcrypt for password hashing
$password = "password123";
$hashed_password = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_BCRYPT);

// Example of using prepared statements for data storage
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO users (username, password) VALUES (:username, :password)");
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->bindParam(':password', $hashed_password);
$stmt->execute();

Keywords

authentication data storage PHP applications security encryption

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