What are the potential pitfalls of using $_GET variables in PHP for linking different pages?

Using $_GET variables in PHP for linking different pages can expose your application to security vulnerabilities such as Cross-Site Scripting (XSS) attacks or data manipulation. To mitigate this risk, it is recommended to validate and sanitize any user input received through $_GET variables before using them in your application. 

// Example of validating and sanitizing $_GET variables
$page = isset($_GET['page']) ? $_GET['page'] : 'default';
$allowed_pages = ['page1', 'page2', 'page3'];

if (in_array($page, $allowed_pages)) {
    include($page . '.php');
} else {
    include('error.php');
}

Keywords

$_GET variables security vulnerabilities SQL injection cross-site scripting data validation

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