What is the potential risk of using copy() with HTTP addresses in PHP scripts?

Using copy() with HTTP addresses in PHP scripts can pose a security risk as it allows for arbitrary file downloads from remote servers, which could potentially lead to code execution vulnerabilities or the downloading of malicious files. To mitigate this risk, it is recommended to use a more secure method for downloading files from remote servers, such as using cURL with proper validation and sanitization of the input.

// Example of a more secure way to download a file from a remote server using cURL
$url = 'https://example.com/file.txt';
$destination = 'localfile.txt';

$ch = curl_init($url);
$fp = fopen($destination, 'w');

curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FILE, $fp);
curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0);

curl_exec($ch);

curl_close($ch);
fclose($fp);