What are the potential security risks of using the outdated mysql extension in PHP?

Using the outdated mysql extension in PHP poses security risks such as SQL injection attacks, as it does not support prepared statements or parameterized queries. To mitigate these risks, it is recommended to switch to the mysqli or PDO extension, which provide better security features and support for prepared statements.

// Connect to MySQL using the mysqli extension
$mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "username", "password", "database");

if ($mysqli->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $mysqli->connect_error);
}