What are the potential security risks of not using $_GET and $_POST in PHP programming?

Using $_GET and $_POST directly in PHP programming can lead to security vulnerabilities such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting attacks. To mitigate these risks, it is recommended to sanitize and validate user input before using it in your application.

// Sanitize and validate user input before using it
$username = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'username', FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);
$email = filter_input(INPUT_POST, 'email', FILTER_VALIDATE_EMAIL);