What are the potential pitfalls of not using Prepared Statements in PDO for MySQL?

Using PDO Prepared Statements in MySQL helps prevent SQL injection attacks by automatically escaping input data. Without using Prepared Statements, your application is vulnerable to SQL injection attacks where malicious users can manipulate the input data to execute unauthorized SQL queries. To prevent this security risk, always use Prepared Statements when interacting with a MySQL database in PDO.

// Using PDO Prepared Statements to prevent SQL injection

// Connect to the database
$pdo = new PDO('mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase', 'username', 'password');

// Prepare a SQL query using a Prepared Statement
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');

// Bind parameters
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $username, PDO::PARAM_STR);

// Execute the query
$stmt->execute();

// Fetch the results
$results = $stmt->fetchAll();