What are the potential security risks of not properly securing input values in PHP?

Improperly securing input values in PHP can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection, cross-site scripting (XSS), and code injection attacks. To mitigate these risks, it is essential to properly sanitize and validate user input before using it in your application. This can be achieved by using functions like `mysqli_real_escape_string()` for SQL injection prevention and `htmlspecialchars()` for XSS prevention.

// Example of properly securing input values in PHP
$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];

// Sanitize input to prevent SQL injection
$user_input_sanitized = mysqli_real_escape_string($connection, $user_input);

// Sanitize input to prevent XSS
$user_input_sanitized = htmlspecialchars($user_input, ENT_QUOTES, 'UTF-8');