What best practices should be followed when handling user authentication in PHP, especially in terms of password encryption and verification?

When handling user authentication in PHP, it is best practice to securely encrypt passwords before storing them in the database and to verify passwords using a secure hashing algorithm such as bcrypt. This helps protect user data in case of a data breach. 

// Encrypting and storing password
$hashed_password = password_hash($password, PASSWORD_DEFAULT);

// Verifying password
if (password_verify($input_password, $hashed_password)) {
    // Password is correct
} else {
    // Password is incorrect
}

Keywords

password encryption user authentication PHP functions verification security

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