What are the potential security risks associated with using mysql_* functions in PHP scripts, and how can they be mitigated?

The potential security risks associated with using mysql_* functions in PHP scripts include SQL injection vulnerabilities and deprecated functionality. To mitigate these risks, it is recommended to use prepared statements with PDO or MySQLi extensions, which provide parameterized queries to prevent SQL injection attacks.

// Connect to the database using PDO
$dsn = 'mysql:host=localhost;dbname=mydatabase';
$username = 'username';
$password = 'password';

try {
    $pdo = new PDO($dsn, $username, $password);
    $pdo->setAttribute(PDO::ATTR_ERRMODE, PDO::ERRMODE_EXCEPTION);
} catch (PDOException $e) {
    echo 'Connection failed: ' . $e->getMessage();
}