What are the potential security risks of storing sensitive information in cookies in PHP?

Storing sensitive information in cookies in PHP can expose the data to potential security risks such as unauthorized access, data theft, and manipulation. To mitigate these risks, it is recommended to encrypt the sensitive information before storing it in cookies and validate the data when retrieving it. 

// Encrypt sensitive information before storing in cookies
$secretKey = "mySecretKey";
$sensitiveData = "sensitive information";
$encryptedData = openssl_encrypt($sensitiveData, 'AES-256-CBC', $secretKey, 0, $secretKey);
setcookie('encryptedData', $encryptedData, time() + 3600, '/', '', false, true);

// Decrypt the sensitive information when retrieving from cookies
$encryptedData = $_COOKIE['encryptedData'];
$decryptedData = openssl_decrypt($encryptedData, 'AES-256-CBC', $secretKey, 0, $secretKey);
echo $decryptedData;

Keywords

security risks sensitive information cookies PHP data leakage

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