What are the best practices for securely transferring sensitive data like numbers and article numbers in PHP?

When transferring sensitive data like numbers and article numbers in PHP, it is crucial to use secure methods such as encryption and HTTPS to protect the information from unauthorized access. One common practice is to use PHP's built-in encryption functions like openssl_encrypt() and openssl_decrypt() to encrypt the data before sending it over the network.

// Encrypt sensitive data before sending
$plaintext = "12345";
$key = openssl_random_pseudo_bytes(16);
$iv = openssl_random_pseudo_bytes(16);
$ciphertext = openssl_encrypt($plaintext, 'AES-256-CBC', $key, 0, $iv);

// Decrypt the data on the receiving end
$decrypted = openssl_decrypt($ciphertext, 'AES-256-CBC', $key, 0, $iv);

// Send the encrypted data over HTTPS
// Example: $encrypted_data = urlencode(base64_encode($ciphertext));