What are the potential risks of using outdated PHP functions like mysql_* in web development?

Using outdated PHP functions like mysql_* in web development can pose security risks as these functions are deprecated and no longer receive updates or security patches. This can leave your website vulnerable to SQL injection attacks and other security threats. To mitigate these risks, it is recommended to switch to more secure and up-to-date alternatives like PDO or MySQLi. 

// Example of using PDO to connect to a MySQL database
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "dbname";

try {
    $conn = new PDO("mysql:host=$servername;dbname=$dbname", $username, $password);
    $conn->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
    echo "Connected successfully";
} catch(PDOException $e) {
    echo "Connection failed: " . $e->getMessage();
}

Keywords

outdated PHP functions mysql_* web development security risks vulnerabilities

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