What are the best practices for securely handling user input and passwords in PHP scripts, especially when using MD5 encryption?

When handling user input and passwords in PHP scripts, it is crucial to sanitize and validate user input to prevent SQL injection and other security vulnerabilities. When storing passwords, it is recommended to use a secure hashing algorithm like bcrypt instead of MD5, which is considered weak and easily crackable. Additionally, always use prepared statements when interacting with a database to prevent SQL injection attacks. 

// Sanitize and validate user input
$username = filter_var($_POST['username'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
$password = filter_var($_POST['password'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

// Hash the password using bcrypt
$hashed_password = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT);

// Store the username and hashed password in the database using prepared statements
$stmt = $pdo->prepare("INSERT INTO users (username, password) VALUES (:username, :password)");
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username);
$stmt->bindParam(':password', $hashed_password);
$stmt->execute();

Keywords

user input validation password hashing MD5 encryption SQL injection cross-site scripting

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