What are the potential security risks associated with using shell_exec() in PHP to execute external binaries?

Using shell_exec() in PHP to execute external binaries can pose security risks such as command injection attacks if user input is not properly sanitized. To mitigate these risks, it is important to validate and sanitize user input before passing it to shell_exec(). 

$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];

// Sanitize user input
$sanitized_input = escapeshellarg($user_input);

// Execute external binary safely
$output = shell_exec("your_command_here " . $sanitized_input);

Keywords

shell_exec security risks PHP external binaries vulnerabilities

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