What are the security implications of using file_get_contents to fetch data from external sources in PHP?

Using file_get_contents to fetch data from external sources in PHP can pose security risks such as potential for remote code execution, exposing sensitive data, and vulnerability to injection attacks. To mitigate these risks, it is recommended to use other, more secure methods such as cURL with proper validation and sanitization of input data. 

$url = 'https://example.com/data';
$ch = curl_init();
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
$data = curl_exec($ch);
curl_close($ch);

// Process $data as needed

Keywords

file_get_contents security implications external sources PHP data fetching

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