What are the potential security risks of using sudo in a PHP script to execute shell commands?

Using sudo in a PHP script to execute shell commands can pose a security risk as it grants elevated privileges to the script, potentially allowing malicious commands to be executed with root access. To mitigate this risk, it is recommended to carefully review and restrict the commands that can be executed using sudo in the PHP script.

<?php
// Restrict the commands that can be executed using sudo
$allowed_commands = array('ls', 'cat', 'grep');
$command = $_POST['command'];

if (in_array($command, $allowed_commands)) {
    $output = shell_exec("sudo $command");
    echo $output;
} else {
    echo "Command not allowed";
}
?>