What are the potential security risks associated with using $_GET variables in PHP code?

Using $_GET variables in PHP code can pose security risks such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and data manipulation attacks. To mitigate these risks, it is important to sanitize and validate any user input received through $_GET variables before using them in your code. 

// Example of sanitizing and validating a $_GET variable before using it
$user_id = isset($_GET['user_id']) ? (int)$_GET['user_id'] : 0; // Sanitize input as integer
if($user_id <= 0) {
    // Handle invalid input
    exit('Invalid user ID');
}

// Now $user_id can be safely used in your code

Keywords

$_GET variables security risks PHP code injection attacks data validation

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