What are the potential security risks associated with manually managing contacts for a newsletter without a database in PHP?

Manually managing contacts for a newsletter without a database in PHP can lead to security risks such as data loss, unauthorized access, and lack of data encryption. To mitigate these risks, it is recommended to use a database to securely store and manage contact information.

// Connect to a MySQL database
$servername = "localhost";
$username = "username";
$password = "password";
$dbname = "newsletter_contacts";

$conn = new mysqli($servername, $username, $password, $dbname);

// Check connection
if ($conn->connect_error) {
    die("Connection failed: " . $conn->connect_error);
}