What are the best practices for securely storing and managing user credentials in a PHP application?

Storing and managing user credentials securely is crucial to protect sensitive information from unauthorized access. One best practice is to hash passwords using a strong hashing algorithm like bcrypt before storing them in the database. Additionally, using secure methods for storing and managing session tokens can help prevent session hijacking attacks. 

// Hashing user password before storing it in the database
$password = password_hash($user_input_password, PASSWORD_BCRYPT);

// Verifying user password during login
if (password_verify($user_input_password, $stored_password_hash)) {
    // Password is correct
} else {
    // Password is incorrect
}

// Generating a secure session token
$session_token = bin2hex(random_bytes(32));

// Storing the session token securely
$_SESSION['session_token'] = $session_token;

Keywords

password hashing secure storage encryption password policy SQL injection

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