What are the best practices for handling user passwords in a PHP login script to ensure secure authentication?

To ensure secure authentication in a PHP login script, it is important to hash user passwords using a strong cryptographic algorithm like bcrypt. This helps protect user passwords in case of a data breach. Additionally, it is recommended to use prepared statements or parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection attacks. 

// Hashing user password using bcrypt
$password = password_hash($_POST['password'], PASSWORD_BCRYPT);

// Verifying hashed password during login
if (password_verify($_POST['password'], $hashed_password)) {
    // Password is correct
} else {
    // Password is incorrect
}

Keywords

password hashing password salting bcrypt password_verify password_hash

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