What is the potential risk of using the exec() function in PHP to run external programs?

The potential risk of using the exec() function in PHP to run external programs is that it can lead to security vulnerabilities such as command injection attacks. To mitigate this risk, it is recommended to use escapeshellarg() or escapeshellcmd() functions to properly escape any user input before passing it to the exec() function. 

$user_input = $_POST['user_input'];
$escaped_input = escapeshellarg($user_input);
exec("your_command_here $escaped_input");

Keywords

exec function PHP security risk external programs command injection

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