What best practices can be followed to prevent PHP projects from being flagged as potentially risky?

To prevent PHP projects from being flagged as potentially risky, it is important to follow best practices for secure coding. This includes sanitizing user input, validating input data, using parameterized queries for database operations, avoiding the use of deprecated functions, and keeping PHP versions and dependencies up to date.

// Sanitize user input
$user_input = filter_var($_POST['user_input'], FILTER_SANITIZE_STRING);

// Validate input data
if (preg_match('/^[a-zA-Z0-9]+$/', $user_input)) {
    // Proceed with validated input
} else {
    // Handle invalid input
}

// Use parameterized queries for database operations
$stmt = $pdo->prepare('SELECT * FROM users WHERE username = :username');
$stmt->bindParam(':username', $user_input);
$stmt->execute();

// Avoid deprecated functions
if (function_exists('deprecated_function')) {
    // Use alternative function
}

// Keep PHP versions and dependencies up to date
// Regularly update PHP to the latest stable version
// Update dependencies using Composer